Ralph Ellison and Ellison Studies in the West and in Russia

Abstract

The paper dwells on Ralph Ellison’s biography and his works, especially on his masterpiece Invisible Man (1952), its topical issues, poetics, the phenomenon of its exceptional success and the way it influenced over to Ellison’s status as one of the biggest XXth century classics and a reputed contributor to the African American and American literary canon. The essay traces the publication history of Ellison’s works, including posthumously released editions of his unpublished texts in 1990s-2010s, that became a result of an extensive research made by Ellison’s literary executor, literary historian, editor, textual critic John F. Callahan. The survey of American and European Ellison studies characterizes the basic corpus of books, academic papers, critical essays, collections, etc., both of the earlier (before mid-nineties) an contemporary period; the most outstanding scholars in the field are mentioned. Finally the essay gives a brief outlook of the scanty Soviet / Russian Ellisoniana – translations and editions, critical response and studies, and stresses an obvious discrepancy between the situation in the West and in Russia, where the Invisible Man still remains untranslated and the amount of scholarly papers, devoted to Ellison, scarcely reaches a dozen.

Keywords

• ralph ellison
• invisible man
• ellison studies
• african american studies
• xxth century american literary history
• john f. callahan
• bibliography