Invisible Man, Ellison's only published novel, is one of the acknowledged classics of twentieth-century fiction. Published in 1952 and modeled on Ellison himself, the novel portrays a young black man in search of his own identity.

The short story "Sonny's Blues," (1957) by Ellison's contemporary, James Baldwin, tells the story of two African-American brothers in New York City. One, a high school teacher, has accommodated himself to living in white society, while the other, a jazz musician with a heroin problem, channels his frustrations and his "blues" into his music.

Published in 1940, Richard Wright's Native Son, is a much angrier and more pessimistic story than "Sonny's Blues" or Invisible Man. The novel draws a portrait of Bigger Thomas, a young black man driven to violence by the oppressive nature of white society. matters; and W. E. B. DuBois, who urged a more...