Description

‘One of the most important American novels of the twentieth century’ The Times

‘It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves’

Ralph Ellison’s blistering and impassioned first novel tells the extraordinary story of a man invisible ‘simply because people refuse to see me’. Published in 1952 when American society was in the cusp of immense change, the powerfully depicted adventures of Ellison’s invisible man – from his expulsion from a Southern college to a terrifying Harlem race riot – go far beyond the story of one individual to give voice to the experience of an entire generation of black Americans.

This edition includes Ralph Ellison’s introduction to the thirtieth anniversary edition of Invisible Man, a fascinating account of the novel’s seven-year gestation.

With an Introduction by John F. Callahan

‘Brilliant’ Saul Bellow

Publisher Review

Don’t try to write the Great American Novel, it has already been done . . . any US epic must address race, which remains the greatest single issue the country faces. — Paul Gambaccini * The Week * A stunning block-buster of a book that will floor and flabbergast some people, bedevil and intrigue others, and keep everybody reading right through to its explosive end — Langston Hughes A brilliant individual victory . . . proving that a truly heroic quality can exist among our contemporaries — Saul Bellow One of the most important American novels of the twentieth century * Times *