I Am an Invisible Man

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We've been encouraging listeners to read both books, all three books, before we start talking about it. Still, please, if you want, put this on pause. We want to be able to talk about some of the plot and and what happens in both books. The early part of invisible man is the same n a battle reyal,. that allison finds himself as a young boy in a public fight for entertainment in front of a bunch of rich white people - one of the most heartbreaking passages. Again, it's a work of fiction, but doesn't matter its its how can people do other people? How could they manipulate them with such cruelty? There's no answer to that

In his memoir of his time in Auschwitz, Primo Levi describes Jewish prisoners bathing in freezing water without soap--not because they thought it would make them cleaner, but because it helped them hold on to their dignity. For poet and author Dwayne Betts, Levi's description of his fellow inmates' suffering, much like the novelist Ralph Ellison's portrayal of early twentieth-century black life in America, is much more than bearing witness to the darkest impulses of mankind. Rather, Betts tells EconTalk host Russ Roberts, both authors' writing turns experiences of inhumanity into lessons on what it means to be a human being.