Ralph Ellison - Portrait - Callaloo 18:2

RALPH ELLISON (1914–1994) is author of the novel Invisible Man (winner of the 1952 National Book Award), two books of non-fiction prose, Shadow and Act (1964) and Going to the Territory (1986), and numerous essays, reviews, speeches, and pieces of short fiction. He received many other awards, including the National Medal of Arts (1985), the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Artes et Lettres (1970), and the Medal of Feedom (1969). He was a member of the Carnegie Commission on Public Television, a charter member of the National Council on the Arts and Humanities, a trustee of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (1971–84), and a trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (1967–77). He was Visiting Professor of Writing at Rutgers University (1962–64) and, from 1970 to 1980, he was Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at New York University.

Photo credit © Dorothy Alexander.

Remembering Ralph Ellison

• • John F. Callahan, Frequencies of Memory: A Eulogy for Ralph Waldo Ellison

• • Steve Cannon, Reminiscin’ in C: Remembering Ralph Waldo Ellison

• • Leon Forrest, Ralph Ellison Remembered

• • Michael S. Harper, Crypt: In Memoriam, Ralph Waldo Ellison, 1914–1994

• • Keneth Kinnamon, Ellison in Urbana: Memories and an Interview

• • David Levin, Ralph Ellison

• • Nathan A. Scott, Jr., Ellison’s Vision of Communitas

• • Richard Stern, Ralph Ellison

Selected Works by Ralph Ellison

• • Cadilac Flambé

• • The Roof, the Steeple and the People