Invisible man ralph ellison audio book1/28/2024 ![]() “What I got to do with was be his tutee for a year, and take a course with him called ‘American Vernacular,’ where I understood that American literature at its best was a function of how we spoke, how we told stories around campfires - how we bragged, consoled, lamented and felt,” Katz explains. In a world that’s primed so many for distracted multitasking, the constant stream of conversationally packaged information offered by audiobooks and podcasts may seem to offer a moment’s respite. This coincidence of timing would bring the two together and spark Katz’s interest in literature not only as text, but also as a meaningful performance of the human condition. The same year that Katz enrolled as an English student, Ellison was named the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at NYU. That writer was Ralph Ellison, author of one of America’s most widely celebrated novels, Invisible Man, which details the unique experiences of an African-American man living in New York City during the early 1900s. It was then and there that Katz claims the intellectual “birth” of what would one day become Audible took place - thanks, in large part, to a writer whose work and teachings profoundly influenced Katz’s own understanding of literature as something more than words on a page. Katz spent four years earning undergraduate degrees in English and political science at NYU in the early 1970s. Long before he built the largest audiobook business in the United States, and more than four decades before he founded a startup accelerator in Newark Venture Partners, Katz was an eager student of literature. With respect to the greater narrative of his life, it makes sense that Katz would come to this conclusion. ![]() This same notion is what’s led Katz to believe that he should consider what his business “means” - to stakeholders, to writers, to employees and to the community at large- ”beyond dollars and cents.” It’s this line of thinking that led Katz first to pen his critically acclaimed novel, Home Fires, and later to found Audible. The value of storytelling has been well-covered, and Katz isn’t far off when he describes being told a story as a “primal pleasure” - particularly when performance is brought into the picture. ![]() Though lots of moving parts have to be corralled together in order to found, expand and manage a business as large as, founder Donald Katz would argue that the key component to his company’s success is this: People love a good story and they love it even more when it’s delivered conversationally. Don Katz dishes on storytelling with ‘Invisible Man,’ Ralph Ellison.
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