"Flying Home": a Living Story. Ralph Waldo Ellison is perhaps one of the most influential African-American writers of the twentieth century. Ellison is best known for writing about such topics as self-awareness, identity, and the racial repression of African-Americans in the United States. His masterpiece, Invisible Man, chronicles the story of a young man striving to find himself in a world where he is hardly noticed. This novel won him much respect in the eyes of the literary community. Earlier in his career, Ellison also wrote many influential short stories. "Flying Home", is one of Ellison’s stories that call the attention of all concerned with the basic