An African-American man's search for success and the American dream leads him out of college to Harlem and a growing sense of personal rejection and social invisibility. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

These three volumes have been redesigned and reissued to commemorate the first anniversary of Ellison's death. (Mar.) From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

This audio is a thoughtful, wonderful version of one of the best works of American fiction of the 20th century. Peter Francis James expresses every nuance of the Northern and Southern black, white, and Caribbean dialects Ellison employed, reading with lyrical feeling and passion throughout this well-produced recording. The experiences of the unnamed protagonist in the rural South and in post-World War II Harlem serve as allegories for maturing intellectual, emotional, and moral sensitivities in us all, black or white, rich or poor, 1950s or 1990s. Though blessed with individual gifts, perhaps even with social privilege, we become, like the protagonist, a construct of others' prejudices, expectations, and stereotypesDwe become ambiguous to self, invisible to our own society. The society, attitudes, and institutions of the 1950s play large roles in shaping the invisible hero. It seems a shame that not much has changed: parallel influences seem to have kept us from understanding very much more as a society now than we knew then. Highly recommended for adult fiction collections.DCliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Ralph Ellison has the distinction of being one of the few writers who has established a firm literary reputation on the strength of a single work of long fiction. Writer and teacher, Ralph Ellison was born in Oklahoma City, studied at Tuskegee Institute, and has lectured at New York, Columbia, and Fisk universities and at Bard College. He received the Prix de Rome from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 1955, and in 1964 he was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He has contributed short stories and essays to various publications.

Invisible Man (1952), his first novel, won the National Book Award for 1952 and is considered an impressive work. It is a vision of the underground man who is also the invisible African American, and its possessor has employed this subterranean view and viewer to so extraordinary an advantage that the impression of the novel is that of a pioneer work. A book of essays, Shadow and Act, which discusses the African American in America and Ellison's Oklahoma boyhood, among other topics, appeared in 1964.

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