| Edition |
1st Vintage International ed. |
| Description |
xxii, 317 pages ; 21 cm |
|
text txt rdacontent |
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unmediated n rdamedia |
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volume nc rdacarrier |
| Contents |
That same pain, that same pleasure : an interview -- Twentieth-century fiction and the black mask of humanity -- Change the joke and slip the yoke -- Stephen Crane and the mainstream of American fiction -- Richard Wright's blues -- Beating that boy -- Brave words for a startling occasion -- The world and the jug -- Hidden name and complex fate -- The art of fiction : an interview -- Living with music -- The golden age, time past -- As the spirit moves Mahalia [Jackson] -- On Bird, Bird-watching, and jazz -- The Charlie Christian story -- Remembering Jimmy [Rushing] -- Blues people -- Some questions and some answers -- The shadow and the act -- The way it is -- Harlem is nowhere -- An American dilemma : a review. |
| Summary |
"With the same intellectual incisiveness and supple, stylish prose he brought to his classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison examines his antecedents and in so doing illuminates the literature, music, and culture of both black and white America. His range is virtuosic, encompassing Mark Twain and Richard Wright, Mahalia Jackson and Charlie Parker, The Birth of a Nation and the Dante-esque landscape of Harlem--"the scene and symbol of the Negro's perpetual alienation in the land of his birth." Throughout, he gives us what amounts to an episodic autobiography that traces his formation as a writer as well as the genesis of Invisible Man. On every page, Ellison reveals his idiosyncratic and often contrarian brilliance, his insistence on refuting both black and white stereotypes of what an African American writer should say or be. The result is a book that continues to instruct, delight, and occasionally outrage readers."--Back cover. |
| Subject |
American literature -- African American authors -- History and criticism.
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African Americans -- Intellectual life.
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African Americans in literature.
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African Americans in literature. (OCoLC)fst00799727
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African Americans -- Intellectual life.
(OCoLC)fst00799627
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American literature -- African American authors.
(OCoLC)fst00807114
|
| Indexed Term |
American literature African American authors History and criticism |
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc. (OCoLC)fst01411635
|
| ISBN |
0679760008 |
|
9780679760009 |
|
