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A collection of inter-related stories spanning a century and set in Homewood, a community founded on Pittsburgh's east end by a runaway slave. John Edgar Wideman sings of "dead children in garbage cans, of caterpillars consumed like canapes, of a young girl pushed to paralysis down the steps of a s... More

By turns subtle and intense, disturbing and elusive, the twelve stories in this collection are ultimately connected by themes of memory and loss, reality and fabrication, and by a richness of language that rests lightly on its carefully founded foundation.... More

A man lay dead in a parking lot. Tommy didn't kill him, but the police will shoot first and ask questions later. Mother Bess is kin, but she is a crazy, mean old lady hiding out high about the Homewood streets -- streets that have taken away everything she ever loved. Together, Tommy and Mother Bess... More

While presenting a memoir of discovering basketball, novelist Wideman (U. of Massachusetts-Amherst) reveals much about the origins of black basketball in the US.... More

<P>From "one of America's premier writers of fiction" (New York Times) comes this novel inspired by the 1985 police bombing of a West Philadelphia row house owned by the back-to-nature, Afrocentric cult known as Move. <P>The bombing killed eleven people and started a fire that destroyed sixty othe... More

"20" is a culmination of twenty years of excellence in short fiction writing. It celebrates the hopes, dreams, and individual successes of all the authors who participated in the contest through the past two decades. The Drue Heinz Literature Prize's mission supports and recognizes those writers bra... More

In this compelling travel memoir, the celebrated novelist explores Martinique's seductive natural beauty and culture, as well as its vexed history of colonial violence and racism.... More

A redemptive, healing novel, "Two Cities" brings to brilliant culmination the themes John Edgar Wideman has developed in fourteen previous acclaimed books. It is a story of bridges -- bridges spanning the rivers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, bridges arching over the rifts that have divided our com... More

The author/novelist tells the true story of his brother's imprisonment for murder.... More

The novel tells the story of Albert Wilkes, who after seven years on the run, returns to Homewood, an African American neighborhood of the East End.... More

An award-winning writer traces the life of the father of iconic Civil Rights martyr Emmett Till--a man who was executed by the Army ten years before Emmett's murder. An evocative and personal exploration of individual and collective memory in America by one of the most formidable Black intellectuals... More

In this singular collection, John Edgar Wideman, the acclaimed author of Writing to Save a Life, blends the personal, historical, and political to invent complex, charged stories about love, death, struggle, and what we owe each other. With characters ranging from everyday Americans to Jean-Michel B... More

In this compelling travel memoir, two-time PEN/Faulkner Award winner John Edgar Wideman explores Martinique's seductive natural beauty and culture, as well as its vexed history of colonial violence and racism. Attempting to decipher the strange, alluring mixture of African and European that is Creol... More

&“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 rele... More

A powerful selection of the best of John Edgar Wideman&’s short stories over his fifty-year career, representing the wide range of his intellectual and artistic pursuits.When John Edgar Wideman won the PEN Malamud Award in 2019, he joined a list of esteemed writers—from Eudora Welty to George Saunde... More

One of John Wideman&’s most ambitious and celebrated works, the lyrical masterpiece and PEN/Faulkner winner inspired by the 1985 police bombing of the West Philadelphia row house owned by black liberation group Move.In 1985, police bombed a West Philadelphia row house owned by the Afrocentric cult k... More

From John Edgar Wideman, “a master [who] boldly subverts what a short story can be” (Publishers Weekly) 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 prison cell. <p><p> Forty years after John Edgar ... More

In God's Gym, the celebrated author John Edgar Wideman offers stories that pulse with emotional electricity. The ten pieces here explore strength, both physical and spiritual. The collection opens with a man paying tribute to the quiet fortitude of his mother, a woman who "should wear a T-shirt: G... More

A philosopher, psychiatrist, and political activist, Frantz Fanon was a fierce, acute critic of racism and oppression. Born of African descent in Martinique in 1925, Fanon fought in defense of France during World War II but later against France in Algeria's war for independence. His last book, The W... More

Yearly anthology of the best short stories, selected this year by John Edgar Wideman.... More

This collection holds stories such as "Damballah," "Daddy Garbage," and "The Caterpillar Story" that are diverse but fit together to form an understanding of how a community survives through poverty and alienation.... More

Joyce Carol Oates, Ann Beattie, Diane Ackerman, and more explore the double-edged sword of curiosity . . . Curiosity is as central to life as breathing. And like breath itself, when it ceases, the vibrancy of life fades and disappears. Curiosity leads to discoveries both beneficent and, at times, de... More

Exploring the myriad ways in which we go about preserving what might otherwise be forfeited. Whether trained specialists or lay people who care about something, preservationists come from every stratum of life. The archivist, the linguist, the local town historian. The paleontologist, the heirloom... More

New writings on our fear of—and fascination with—the “other” from Joyce Carol Oates, Peter Straub, Kelly Link, Jeffrey Ford, and more.Alien is a powerful and flexible word. Aliens are “other.” Aliens are the stuff of science fiction and fantasy. Aliens are traditional literary figures that cause us ... More