Ralph Ellison
Books by Ralph Ellison
“It engages a number of literary traditions—the high modernism of Joyce, Eliot and Pound, but also Dostoevsky and Marx. It’s filled with allusions to African American folklore, folk culture and history. It’s just a rich and dynamic novel.” Read more...
The Best African American Literature
Farah Jasmine Griffin, Literary Scholar
Interviews where books by Ralph Ellison were recommended
Talismanic Tomes, recommended by Maria Tatar
The stories we read as children and as adults really do change us and how we see the world around us. Here Maria Tatar, Emerita Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and of Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University, speaks about the power of five ‘talismanic tomes’ that had a meaningful influence on her life.
The Best African American Literature, recommended by Farah Jasmine Griffin
An ever-growing body of authors are writing about the reality of what it means to be black in America, says Farah Jasmine Griffin, director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University. Here she recommends five works of African American literature, from greats like Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison to lesser-known gems by Ann Petry.
The best books on Radical Environmentalism, recommended by Daegan Miller
The shining core of a radical environmentalism is when we open up our circle of concern to include things beyond trees or animals or water to people of all kinds, says the writer and landscape historian Daegan Miller. Here he selects five of the best books that evoke the spirit of the movement.
