Respect

For those of you that haven't read my profile, the name of this blog "Invisible Woman" is based on the book by Ralph Ellison "Invisible Man". It is a fictional account of a black man's invisibility in white society, but it might as well be non-fiction. It is super eloquent, and just as relevant today as it was decades ago when it was written. Undercover Black Man gave out a little info on my man last week:

It’s amazing the amount of cultural information at our fingertips via the Internet. With enough time, one could give oneself a college-level education in world history or literature or philosophy.

You want to know a supremely cool resource? Public radio archives.

In June, Stanford English professor Arnold Rampersad spoke with David Inge on WILL-AM 580, the University of Illinois radio station. The subject was Rampersad’s new book, “Ralph Ellison: A Biography.”

Their conversation makes me hungry to read Ellison’s “Invisible Man” again; I haven’t since high school.

Prof. Rampersad has interesting insights on the major mystery of Ralph Ellison’s creative life: Why, after having written a great American novel, did he never finish a second one?

You can download the full 50-minute interview as an MP3 podcast here. (Click on the headphones icon, then save to disk.)I’m streaming a 4½-minute audio bite on my Vox annex, dealing with the criticism Ellison received from black nationalists and separatists. The clip begins with a question from David Inge. Click here to hear it.

From IW: For those of you interested in the black classics, I hope you check it out.