Williams Reads

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

Williams Reads has an incredible line-up for this January’s book selection – Ralph Ellison’

s Invisible Man. Some of the highlights include:

January 5: Williams Reads Kickoff Event (11:30 am –

1:30 pm, Great Hall Paresky)

January 12: Jazz Concert featuring Freddie Bryant and Andy Jaffee (7:00pm  in Brooks Rogers)

January 19: Invisible Man in the Age of Obama with D. L. Smith (Schapiro Hall Rm. 129, 12:00pm-1:30pm)

January 27: Invisible Man at WCMA (Rose Gallery 12:00pm -1:30pm)

Also check here for reviews and other important information about the Williams Reads program.

When it was published in 1952,Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man won the National Book Award, and since then it has remained a part of the canons of American and African American novels. The book is literature, history, art, and science, but is it still popular? Does it still speak to us? Why was it so important then? Does it retain its import even today? This lunch is a part of the Williams Reads program which has selected Invisible Man for our collective engagement during the month of January 2011.
Please see the Williams College Library website to read more about Ralph Ellison and the book.

“Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching — yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. It is a book that has a great deal to say and which is destined tohave a great deal said about it.”

— book jacket of 1952 edition