Invisible Man
Saul Bellow, #1 New York Times bestselling author
One of the Modern Library's 100 Best English-Language Novels of the Twentieth Century
A Kirkus Reviews Pick of 10 Classics That Never Get Old
A PBS Great American Read selection
A New York Times Editor's Choice of Books of the Century
A New York Public Library Staff Pick of Favorite Books of the Last 125 Years
Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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, 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, James Joyce, and Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Praise