Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man is a novel written by Ralph Ellison, and the only one that he published during his lifetime (Ralph Ellison's other novels were published posthumously). Invisible Man won him the National Book Award in 1953. The novel Invisible Man addresses many of the social and intellectual issues facing African-Americans in the early twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship between black identity and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of individuality and personal identity.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Invisible Man nineteenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Time magazine included the novel Invisible Man in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. In the beginning, the main character lives in a small town in the South. He is a model student, even being named his high school's valedictorian. Having written and delivered an excellent paper about the struggles of the average black man, he gets to tell his speech to a group of important white men. However, he is first forced to fight a humiliating "battle royal" with other young black men. The battle royal consists of the young black men fighting blindfolded in a boxing ring while their white superiors watch in enjoyment. (The Battle Royale scene is not a hallucination.) The young black men then are required to fight over metal coins that have been put on an electric rug. (Summary by Wikipedia)