num_pages: 480
description: The 'invisible man' is the unnamed narrator of Ralph Ellison's blistering, impassioned novel of black lives in 1940s America. Defeated and embittered by a country which treats him as non-being, he has retreated into an underground cell, where he smokes, drinks, listens to jazz and recounts his search for identity in white as an optimistic student in the Deep South, in the north with the black activist group the Brotherhood, and in the Harlem race riots. Powerfully told, angry and often violent, "Invisible Man" goes beyond the compelling story of one man to evoke the lives of millions of African-Americans with an urgency that has potent relevance today.
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: Gardners Books