Ralph Ellison: Author of Invisible Man: World Writers

Trained in classical music but immersed in the jazz that penetrated every nook and cranny of his Oklahoma City neighborhood, Ralph Ellison grew up believing he would be a musician. When he dropped out of Tuskegee Institute because of a lack of funds, he moved north to Harlem, the center for African-American arts and culture. Though the renaissance was mostly over by 1936, Ellison still found plenty of like-minded people there. His friendships with Langston Hughes and Richard Wright nudged him toward writing, and Ellison came to believe that his love of jazz could inform the written word to create a uniquely American kind of prose. The result, after years of labor, was the novel Invisible Man. To this day it remains a seminal work, telling one man's story of how he came to understand and experience the conflict over race in America. Showing the influences of Ellison's musical background as well as his voracious reading, Invisible Man made Ellison a literary sensation. Over the years, he would continue to write and publish essays and stories. He also taught, sharing with his students his love of music, of writing, and of the history and mystery of the country he was proud to call his own. Ralph Ellison: Author of Invisible Man tells the story of how a boy from Oklahoma became a highly respected writerand how his attitudes toward race helped shape the defining conflict of the century.