Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American writer, literary critic and scholar who lived from 1913 to 1994, best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and is regarded as one of the major American novels of the twentieth century for its exploration of Black identity and invisibility in American society. He also published the essay collections Shadow and Act (1964) and Going to the Territory (1986), and a second novel, Juneteenth, was assembled from his extensive notes and published after his death.
Facts
AwardNational Book Award (1953) 1 Classification
Original Language FAQs
Was Ralph Ellison born in 1913 or 1914?
1913. Ellison often gave 1914, but the 1920 census and a note from his mother point to March 1, 1913.
Ralph Ellison was born on March 1, 1913. The confusion comes from Ellison himself. According to his biographer Rampersad, for most of his life Ellison offered 1914 as the correct year. The 1920 United States census, however, lists him as six years old in January of that year, which places his birth in 1913, and a note in his mother's hand kept behind a photograph of him as a toddler sets the time and date of his birth as March 1.
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Source Wikipedia: Ralph Ellison
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1. Wikipedia: Ralph Ellison
Lead section, first sentence, birth year
March 1, 1913
Early life
Ralph Waldo Ellison, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Lewis Alfred Ellison and Ida Millsap, on March 1, 1913.
Lead section, first sentence, death date
April 16, 1994
Later years
Ellison died on April 16, 1994, of pancreatic cancer and was interred in a crypt at Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan.
Lead section, first sentence, award clause
Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953.
Original language statement
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American writer, literary critic and scholar who lived from 1913 to 1994, best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and is regarded as one of the major American novels of the twentieth century for its exploration of Black identity and invisibility in American society.
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