Ralph Ellison

Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was a scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, named by his father after Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ellison was best known for his novel Invisible Man (ISBN 0-679-60139-2), 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.