The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison

The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison Synopsis

These extensive and revealing correspondences over six decades-from 1933 to 1993-provide a remarkable window into Ralph Ellison's aspirations and anxieties, confidence and uncertainties throughout his personal and professional life. They include early notes to his mother, as an impoverished college student; debates with the most distinguished American writers and thinkers of his time, from Romare Bearden, Saul Bellow and Robert Penn Warren, to Richard Wright and Alfred Kazin; and exchanges with friends and family from his hometown of Oklahoma City, whose influence would always be paramount.

These letters are a beautifully rendered, first-person account of Ellison's life, work, and his observations of a changing world, showing his metamorphosis from a wide-eyed student into an esteemed public intellectual, from an aspiring composer into a world-famous novelist, and ultimately into a man who confronted and articulated America's complexities in words.