The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison (PB) (2024)

Compiled, edited, and newly revised by Ralph Ellison's literary executor, John F. Callahan, this definitive volume includes posthumously discovered reviews, criticism, and interviews, as well as the essay collections Shadow and Act (1964), hailed by Robert Penn Warren as "a body of cogent and subtle commentary on the questions that focus on race," and Going to the Territory (1986), an exploration of literature and folklore, jazz and culture, and the nature and quality of lives that Black Americans lead. With newly discovered essays and speeches, The Collected Essays reveal a more vulnerable, intimate side of Ellison than what we've previously seen. "Raph Ellison," wrote Stanley Crouch, "reached across race, religion, class and sex to make us all Americans."