This book examines Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man through the lens of Black spirituality and Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) philosophy, revealing the novel’s understudied spiritual and mystical dimensions. Johnson explores how Ellison utilizes fragments of mainstream cultural representations of the Black experience as raw elements for creating an interdisciplinary discourse on Black spirituality that draws from Kemetic ideas of chaos, formlessness, and movement. Through recovering anterior African philosophical traditions, the book furthers contemporary conversations about African American literary theory.

Ikea Maria Johnson is Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature and African American Literature at Salve Regina University, USA.