Ralph Ellison

Born:

1 March 1914

Died:

16 April 1994

Known for:

Fiction, African Americans, American fiction (fictional works by one author), African americans, fiction, United States, Ellison, ralph, 1914-1994

Ralph Waldo Ellison was a novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986). Research by Lawrence Jackson, one of Ellison's biographers, has established that he was born a year earlier than had been previously thought.