20th-century american novelists

Ernest J. Gaines

Creator

American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese

William Faulkner

Creator

American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of his life

Ralph Ellison

Creator

American novelist, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act , a collection of political, social, and critical essays, and Going to the Territory . The New York Times dubbed him “among the gods of America’s literary Parnassus.” A posthumous novel, Juneteenth, was published after being assembled from voluminous notes he left upon his death.