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Ralph Ellison

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Ralph Ellison


Born
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, The United States
March 01, 1913

Died
April 16, 1994

Genre
Literature & Fiction, Politics, Nonfiction

Influences
Hemingway, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Louis Armstrong, Richard Wright, ...more


Ralph Ellison was a scholar and writer. He was born Ralph Waldo Ellison in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, named by his father after Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ellison was best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986). For The New York Times , the best of these essays in addition to the novel put him "among the gods of America's literary Parnassus." A posthumous novel, Juneteenth, was published after being assembled from voluminous notes he left after his death.

Ellison died of Pancreatic Cancer on April 16, 1994. He was eighty-one years old. ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 3.91 · 197,632 ratings · 9,337 reviews · 97 distinct works • Similar authors
Invisible Man
3.91 avg rating — 191,404 ratings — published 1952 — 249 editions
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Juneteenth
by
3.61 avg rating — 2,099 ratings — published 1999 — 40 editions
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Flying Home and Other Stories
3.90 avg rating — 803 ratings — published 1996 — 13 editions
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Shadow and Act
4.11 avg rating — 618 ratings — published 1960 — 5 editions
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Battle Royal
3.86 avg rating — 410 ratings — 2 editions
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The Collected Essays
by
4.35 avg rating — 294 ratings — published 1995 — 10 editions
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Living with Music: Jazz Wri...
by
4.11 avg rating — 228 ratings — published 2001 — 4 editions
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King of the Bingo Game
3.63 avg rating — 132 ratings — published 1944
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Going to the Territory
4.22 avg rating — 99 ratings — published 1986 — 6 editions
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Three Days Before the Shoot...
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3.93 avg rating — 97 ratings — published 2010 — 10 editions
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More books by Ralph Ellison…

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Quotes by Ralph Ellison  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
tags: freedom, identity, independence, self-awareness, self-discovery
3959 likes
Like

“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
3932 likes
Like

“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
tags: control, defeat, humanity, life
2215 likes
Like

Polls

January 2015 New School Classic Poll

 
  16 votes, 28.6%

1952, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, 581 pages
 
  7 votes, 12.5%

 
  7 votes, 12.5%

1958, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, 209 pages
 
  6 votes, 10.7%

1951, The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, 160 pages
 
  5 votes, 8.9%

 
  4 votes, 7.1%

 
  3 votes, 5.4%

 
  3 votes, 5.4%

 
  2 votes, 3.6%

1920, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, 305 pages
 
  2 votes, 3.6%

 
  1 vote, 1.8%

1928, Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, 300 pages
 
  0 votes, 0.0%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

1958, The Bell by Iris Murdoch, 320 pages
 
  0 votes, 0.0%

56 total votes
More...

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