# Invisible Man

**Author:** Ralph Ellison
**Lexile:** 950L
**Grade range:** Grades 11–12
**Age range:** 16–18
**First published:** 1952
**Page count:** 581
**Genre:** Literary Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780679732761`
**ISBN-10:** `0679732764`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/invisible-man
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

An unnamed Black narrator recounts his journey from a Southern college to Harlem in the 1930s, a search for identity through a society that refuses to see him. Ellison's National Book Award-winning novel is frequent on AP Literature reading lists and upper-level American Literature courses.

## Themes

- racial invisibility
- identity
- power
- disillusionment
- African American experience

## Content notes

- violence
- racial slurs
- sexual content

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 16+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 12th grade — [source: AP Lit representative text list](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 12th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 11-CCR exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)

---

_Generated from primary-source citations indexed on ReadingList.school. For the full HTML view with reading-list cross-references, see https://readinglist.school/book/invisible-man._