Editing Ralph Ellison (section)

== Later years ==
In 1962, the futurist [[Herman Kahn]] recruited Ellison as a consultant to the [[Hudson Institute]] in an attempt to broaden its scope beyond defense-related research.<ref name="Fat Man">{{cite magazine | url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/06/27/fat-man | title=Fat Man | last=Menand | first=Louis | date=27 June 2005 | magazine=The New Yorker | access-date=24 January 2017 }}</ref>

In 1964, Ellison published ''[[Shadow and Act]]'', a collection of essays, and began to teach at [[Bard College]], [[Rutgers University]] and [[Yale University]], while continuing to work on his novel. The following year, a Book Week poll of 200 critics, authors, and editors was released that proclaimed ''Invisible Man'' the most important novel since World War II.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/04/17/ralph-ellison-80-dies/6e77510f-830f-4134-b4c9-3552b5081622/|title=Ralph Ellison, 80, Dies|date=April 17, 1994|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=September 21, 2018|issn=0190-8286}}</ref>

In 1967, Ellison experienced a major house fire at his summer home in [[Plainfield, Massachusetts]], in which he claimed more than 300 pages of his second novel manuscript were lost. A perfectionist regarding the art of the novel, Ellison had said in accepting his National Book Award for ''Invisible Man'' that he felt he had made "an attempt at a major novel" and, despite the award, he was unsatisfied with the book.<ref name=speech>{{cite web| url= http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_rellison.html| title= Acceptance Speech: Ralph Ellison, Winner of the 1953 Fiction Award for ''Invisible Man''| website= nationalbook.org| publisher= National Book Foundation| access-date= March 31, 2012| archive-date= September 28, 2018| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180928083121/http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_rellison.html| url-status= dead}}</ref> Ellison ultimately wrote more than 2,000 pages of this second novel but never finished it.<ref>{{Cite news|title=The Invisible Manuscript|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/15/AR2007081501365.html| newspaper= [[The Washington Post]] |access-date=July 20, 2014}}</ref>

Ellison died on April 16, 1994, of [[pancreatic cancer]] and was interred in a crypt at [[Trinity Church Cemetery]] and Mausoleum<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=28EKb8P3Tq8C&dq=Trinity+Church+Cemetery+ralph+ellison&pg=PT466|title=Ralph Ellison|first=Arnold|last=Rampersad|date=April 24, 2007|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=9780307267320 |via=Google Books}}</ref> in the [[Hamilton Heights, Manhattan|Hamilton Heights]] neighborhood of [[Upper Manhattan]].