Invisible Man

With so many years since reading an excerpt for college, I think it is time to read the full text. A biographical novel, the story is about a Black American man experiencing isolation and loneliness in the 1950s America.

It is about the racial divide and bigotry of American society, and was about the journey of one Black man from the Deep South to the basement apartment in Harlem.

Invisible Man was the first novel published by Ralph Ellison, and it would be the only one published in his lifetime. Published in 1952, it received great acclaim with the award of the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1953.

Ellison wrote what would be Invisible Man over a 5-year period while on leave from the Merchant Marine. When Ellison wrote what began as a short story, he did not consider it to be a protest novel, as many Black authors did write during the Harlem Renaissance. For Ellison himself, he resisted being pigeon-holed into that grouping of American authors who happened to have African ancestry.

He regarded T.S. Eliot as an influence, along with Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner. Herman Melville also had an important role in shaping the imagery Ellison would use to write Invisible Man.

Originally Published on January 22, 2026