Ralph Ellison: A Biography

Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews Professor Arnold Rampersad, author of Ralph Ellison: A Biography published by Knopf.

Arnold Rampersad is the Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities and is a member of the Department of English at Stanford University.

His books include The Art and Imagination of W.E.B. DuBois (1976); The Life of Langston Hughes (2 vols., 1986, 1988); Days of Grace: A Memoir (1993), co-authored with Arthur Ashe; and Jackie Robinson: A Biography (1997). In addition, he has edited several volumes including Collected Poems of Langston Hughes; the Library of America edition (2 vols.) of works by Richard Wright, with revised individual editions of Native Son and Black Boy; and (as co-editor with Deborah McDowell) Slavery and the Literary Imagination. He was also co-editor, with Shelley Fisher Fishkin, of the Race and American Culture book series published by Oxford University Press

From1991 to 1996, he held a MacArthur Foundation fellowship. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Visit his webpage.