:Back Cover

Winner of the National Book Award for

fiction. . . Acclaimed by a 1965 Book Week
poll of 200 prominent authors, critics, and
editors as "the most distinguished single
".work published in the last twenty years

Unlike any novel you've ever read, this

is a richly comic, deeply tragic, and
profoundly soul-searching story of one young
Negro's baffling experiences on the road to
.self-discovery
From the bizarre encounter with the
white trustee that results in his expulsion
from a Southern college, to its powerful
culmination in New York's Harlem, his story
moves with a relentless drive: -- the
nightmarish job in a paint factory -- the bitter
disillusionment with the "Brotherhood" and
its policy of betrayal -- the violent climax
when screaming tensions are released in a
.terrifying race riot
This brilliant, monumental novel is a
triumph of story-telling. It reveals profound
insight into every man's struggle to find his
true self