What Bryan Stevenson Learned from Ralph Ellison

May 13, 2015

This spring during the Los Angeles Festival of Books, the Los Angeles Times featured writers discussing their literary idols. Bryan Stevenson was one of those writers. He wrote about Ralph Ellison an how the book Invisible Man changed how he saw things.

Ellison taught me that sometimes a book can disrupt the relationship you have to the world around you and force you to demand more, seek more, expect more, experience more that is essential and important to what truly matters.

After reading Invisible Man, Stevenson noticed a change in how he viewed racially segregated society and made him more aware of the roles he maintained in that society. He used the wisdom he learned from the narrative in Invisible Man in writing his own book, Just Mercy.

After Invisible Man, I knew it existed; this place where words, narrative and language can get you close to truth and the powers that truth can activate.

Have any books impacted you the way Invisible Man impacted Bryan Stevenson? Who is your literary idol?

To read Stevenson’s article about Ellison click here.

To see if Just Mercy is available for check out at UW Madison Libraries click here.

To see if Invisible Man is available for check out at UW Madison Libraries click here.