Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
7-time National Bestseller, Adult Fiction (Paperback)
- A 2024 National Bestselling Book – Adult Fiction (Paperback)
- A 2023 National Bestselling Book - Adult Fiction (Paperback)
- Voted #8 of the Top 100 Books of the 20th Century
- 1 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- Selected for 2 Book Clubs’s Reading Lists
- National Book Award Honor 1953
Vintage Books (Mar 14, 1995)
Fiction, Paperback, 581 pages
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Description of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Both a deeply compelling bestselling novel and an epic milestone of American literature.
The book’s nameless narrator describes growing up in a Black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of “the Brotherhood,” before retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.
Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.

Additional Book Information:
- ISBN: 9780679732761
- Imprint: Vintage Books
- Publisher: Penguin Random House
- Parent Company: Bertelsmann
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