Showing results by author "John Edgar Wideman" in All Categories

The reissued classic from “master of language” (The New York Times) John Edgar Wideman—a “superb” (New York Times Book Review) memoir in five essays about fathers, and Wideman's vexed relationship with his own. An essential chronicler of Black American experience for over half a...

A major literary figure tells “a searching tale of loss, recovery, and déja vu that is part memoir and what-if speculation, part polemic and exposé” (The Washington Post) about two generations of one family—civil rights martyr Emmett Till and his father, Louis—shortlisted for the...

In this first-ever collection of nonfiction by John Edgar Wideman, a “towering figure in American literature” (The Nation), five decades of cultural and literary criticism paint a vivid portrait of America’s changing landscape and chronicle the emergence and evolution of a generational...

“Master of language” (The New York Times) John Edgar Wideman uses his unique generational position to explore what he calls the “slaveroad,” offering “a fresh perspective of slavery’s impact and a confirmation of Wideman’s exalted status in American letters” (New York magazine)...

*A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Best Book of the Year* From John Edgar Wideman, a modern “master of language” (The New York Times Book Review), comes a stunning story collection that spans a range of topics from Michael Jordan to Emmett Till, from childhood memories to the final day in a...

“A rare triumph” (The New York Times Book Review), this powerful memoir about the divergent paths taken by two brothers is a classic work from one of the greatest figures in American literature: a reflection on John Edgar Wideman’s family and his brother’s incarceration—a classic that is as relevant now as when originally published in 1984.

In 1985, police bombed a West Philadelphia row house owned by the Afrocentric cult known as Move, killing 11 people and starting a fire that destroyed 60 other houses. At the heart of Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighborhood after spending a decade fleeing from his past and who becomes obsessed with the search for a lone survivor of the event: a young boy seen running from the flames.

Damballah, Hiding Place, and Sent for You Yesterday provide a stunning introduction to the uncompromising work of John Edgar Wideman, whose literary achievements have inspired The New York Times to name him “one of America’s premier writers of fiction”. Damballah’s narratives examine the vexed history of Homewood, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, neighborhood whose origins are rooted in a time when slavery was still legal in the United States of America.