SOURCE: An obituary in Los Angeles Times, April 17, 1994, pp. A1, A22.

[In the following, Folkart offers praise for Invisible Man and provides an overview of Ellison's life.]

Ralph Ellison, whose only novel, Invisible Man, became not only a dramatic cry for racial understanding but a work cherished over four decades for its complex yet poignant literary style, died Saturday [April 16, 1994].

He was 80.

Ellison, whose essays and novel propelled him into the front ranks of 20th-Century American fiction, died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Harlem, said Joe Fox, his editor at Random House, Ellison's publisher.

Fox said Ellison had been ill for only a short time. Random House had a party for him on March 1 to celebrate his 80th birthday and "he was perfectly fine," Fox said.

When Invisible Man was published in 1952, its author was a virtually unknown history and music student whose influences ranged from...