Published in 1952, the then-unknown author's vibrant and passionate first novel remained on the bestseller list for weeks and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The Invisible Man came at a time when society was on the cusp of enormous change, giving a voice to an entire generation of black Americans. The novel, written from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, is the story of humanity stumbling on the path to identity, overcoming difficulties and only occasionally achieving success. The book, which has been regularly republished for seventy years, for the first time in Russian, translated by Elena Petrova.