Ralph Ellison: A Biography
(Paperback)
Publishing Details
Ralph Ellison: A Biography
By (Author) Arnold Rampersad
Random House USA Inc
Random House USA Inc
15th May 2008
United States
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
B
Short-listed for National Book Awards 2007
Physical Properties
Paperback
704
Width 131mm, Height 202mm, Spine 39mm
556g
Description
Ralph Ellison is justly celebrated for his epochal novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and has become a classic of American literature. But Ellisons strange inability to finish a second novel, despite his dogged efforts and soaring prestige, made him a supremely enigmatic figure. Arnold Rampersad skillfully tells the story of a writer whose thunderous novel and astute, courageous essays on race, literature, and culture assure him of a permanent place in our literary heritage. Starting with Ellisons hardscrabble childhood in Oklahoma and his ordeal as a student in Alabama, Rampersad documents his improbable, painstaking rise in New York to a commanding place on the literary scene. With scorching honesty but also fair and compassionate, Rampersad lays bare his subjects troubled psychology and its impact on his art and on the people about him.This book is both the definitive biography of Ellison and a stellar model of literary biography.
Reviews
Startling, illuminating. . . . [Rampersad] treats Ellison as a man, not as a deity.
The New Yorker
Astute . . . revelatory. . . . Consistently intriguing.
The Washington Post Book World
Illuminating and richly reported. . . . Rampersad is uniquely qualified to examine the Ellison case.
The New York Times Book Review
Rampersad is as meticulous as he is graceful.
Newsday
Author Bio
Arnold Rampersad is Senior Associate Dean for the Humanities at Stanford University, where he is also Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities and a member of the English department. He is a recipient of fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written for The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review, and The Washington Post.
