Shadow and Act

These essays address many of the underlying themes of Ralph Ellison's fiction, particularly issues of race and identity. "They represent, in all their modesty," Ellison writes in his introduction, "some of the necessary effort which a writer of my background must make in order to possess the meaning of his experience . . . they are an embodiment of a conscious attempt to confront, to peer into, the shadow of my past and to remind myself of the complex resources for imaginative creation which are my heritage."