num_pages: 581
description: Invisible Man is 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 and 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, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
language: English
title: Invisible Man
titlecomplete: Invisible Man
characters: Brother Jack, Tod Clifton, Unnamed Narrator, Mary Rambo, Mr. Norton, Sybil (Invisible Man), Lucius Brockway, Ras the Exhorter, Dr. Hebert Bledsoe, Jim Trueblood
genres: American, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, School, Literature, Race, Classics, African American, Fiction
ratings_count: 182938
places: New York City, New York, Alabama, Harlem, New York City, New York, The United States of America
awards: awardedAt: -536428800000
name: National Book Award
category: Fiction
publisher: Vintage