Born: March 1, 1914, Oklahoma City, OK

Education: Tuskegee Institute, 1933–36

Died: April 16, 1994, New York, NY

A grandson of slaves, Ellison became one of the most significant writers in America. His Invisible Man earned the 1953 National Book Award. In 1965 a Book Week Magazine poll of 200 critics declared it “the most distinguished American novel written since World War II.”

Ellison's road to that achievement began in a poverty-stricken childhood. A bookish boy who hoped to study music, he achieved scholastically and won a state scholarship to Tuskegee Institute, where he studied literature and sculpture in addition to music. Dispirited by tuition problems and Jim Crow, he withdrew and moved to New York City. There he found work and met Richard Wright, who encouraged him to write. He then published dozens of articles and stories. He also joined the Merchant Marine and, once while out on sick leave, wrote a single sentence: “I am an invisible man.” Seven years later he had written his landmark story of a young black man facing a hostile and indifferent society. It follows the unnamed protagonist from the South to the North, from youth to adulthood, and from racial naiveté to self-consciousness, ultimately understanding that he had allowed himself to be defined by a world that segregated and devalued him.