Juneteenth (Revised)

From the author of the classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth is a powerful and brilliantly crafted tale that explores themes of identity, race, and ambition.

"[A] stunning achievement. . . . Ellison sought no less than to create a Book of Blackness, a literary composition of the tradition at its most sublime and fundamental." Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Time

The story follows Adam Sunraider, a race-baiting senator, whose life takes an unexpected turn when he calls for Alonzo Hickman, an old Black minister, to be by his side as he faces a mortal wound. As the two men intimately share their stories and memories, the true shape and substance of the past begin to emerge. 

Here is Ellison, a virtuoso of American vernacular the preacher s hyperbole and the politician s rhetoric, the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech at the height of his powers, telling a moving, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century. 

With an introduction and additional notes by John F. Callahan, who first compiled Juneteenth out of thousands of manuscript pages in 1999, and a preface by National Book Award-winning author Charles R. Johnson.

Beautifully written and imaginatively conceived, Juneteenth, like Invisible Man, deserves to be read and reread by generations. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

About the author

Ralph Ellison

Summary

From the author of the classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth is a powerful and brilliantly crafted tale that explores themes of identity, race, and ambition.

"[A] stunning achievement. . . . Ellison sought no less than to create a Book of Blackness, a literary composition of the tradition at its most sublime and fundamental."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Time

The story follows Adam Sunraider, a race-baiting senator, whose life takes an unexpected turn when he calls for Alonzo Hickman, an old Black minister, to be by his side as he faces a mortal wound. As the two men intimately share their stories and memories, the true shape and substance of the past begin to emerge. 

Here is Ellison, a virtuoso of American vernacular—the preacher’s hyperbole and the politician’s rhetoric, the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech—at the height of his powers, telling a moving, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century. 

With an introduction and additional notes by John F. Callahan, who first compiled Juneteenth out of thousands of manuscript pages in 1999, and a preface by National Book Award-winning author Charles R. Johnson.

“Beautifully written and imaginatively conceived, Juneteenth, like Invisible Man, deserves to be read and reread by generations.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Additional text

[A] vastly ambitious informing allegory, an allegory made rich, as in Invisible Man, with the sensory details of which Ellison was such a master."  -The New York Review of Books

"[A] stunning achievement. . . . Juneteenth is a tour de force of untutored eloquence.  Ellison sought no less than to create a Book of Blackness, a literary composition of the tradition at its most sublime and fundamental."  -Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Time  

"Juneteenth . . . threatens to come as close as any since Huckleberry Finn to grabbing the ring of the Great American Novel."  -Los Angeles Times

“Eloquent, ardent, and worth the wait. . . . Beautifully written and imaginatively conceived, Juneteenth, like Invisible Man, deserves to be read and reread by generations.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Report

[A] vastly ambitious informing allegory, an allegory made rich, as in Invisible Man, with the sensory details of which Ellison was such a master."  -The New York Review of Books

"[A] stunning achievement. . . . Juneteenth is a tour de force of untutored eloquence.  Ellison sought no less than to create a Book of Blackness, a literary composition of the tradition at its most sublime and fundamental."  -Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Time  

"Juneteenth . . . threatens to come as close as any since Huckleberry Finn to grabbing the ring of the Great American Novel."  -Los Angeles Times

Eloquent, ardent, and worth the wait. . . . Beautifully written and imaginatively conceived, Juneteenth, like Invisible Man, deserves to be read and reread by generations. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Product details

• Authors: Ralph Ellison, Charles Johnson
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 18.05.2021
• EAN: 9780593314616
• ISBN: 978-0-593-31461-6
• No. of pages: 416
• Dimensions: 131 mm x 202 mm x 21 mm
• Series: Vintage International
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature