About the Author

Ralph Ellison was born in Oklahoma City in 1913. His love of music led him to enroll at Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute in Macon County, Alabama, as a music major. In 1936 he visited New York City, where he befriended established authors and intellectuals who encouraged him to pursue a career in writing. He joined the Federal Writers' Project and began contributing essays and short stories for publications such as New Masses, The Negro Quarterly, The New Republic and Saturday Review. By 1945 he had signed a contract to write what was to become Invisible Man (1952); it won the National Book Award in 1953 but remained his only novel published during his lifetime. He published two subsequent collections of essays, Shadow and Act (1964) and Going to the Territory (1986). For many years Ellison worked on a second novel, which he never completed; its central narrative was published posthumously as Three Days Before the Shooting . . . (2010). Ellison died in 1994.

Reviews

In this way, Ellison could render visible all that had been erased, much in the same way he had done by giving a disembodied voice form in his groundbreaking novel, Invisible Man. No matter his weapon of choice, Ellison understood art's ability to transform our relationship to reality.--Miss Rosen Miss "Blind"

Minimally designed throughout, the editors let these gorgeous and sometimes haunting images create the narrative.--Alana Ruiz de la Peña "ArtDesk"

This book is not only a valuable addition to Ellison's artistic legacy but also a compelling invitation to reassess the boundaries of artistic expression and recognize the profound contributions of a true literary giant to the world of photography.--Josh Bright "Independent Photographer"

Ellison's photographs are eloquent, and in a few instances startling. They provide welcome new information on how he observed the society he inhabited.--Arthur Lubow "The New York Times"