Enhanced by rare photographs, this work draws from archives, literary correspondence, and interviews with Ellison's relatives, friends, and associates. It traces the writer's path from poverty in dust bowl Oklahoma to his rise among the literary elite and examines his previously undocumented involvement in the Socialist Left of the 1930s and 1940s.
Author, intellectual, and social critic, Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) was a pivo tal figure in American literature and history and arguably the father of African American modernism. Universally acclaimed for his first novel, Invisible Man, a masterpiece of modern fiction, Ellison was recognized with a stunning succession of honors, including the 1953 National Book Award. Despite his literary accomplishments and political activism, however, Ellison has received surprisingly sparse treatment from biographers. Lawrence Jackson's biography of Ellison, the first when it was published in 2002, focuses on the authors early life.
