John Edgar Wideman
John Edgar Wideman is an acclaimed African American writer, known for his profound explorations of identity, family, and the African American experience. Raised in Homewood, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Wideman exhibited academic and athletic excellence, serving as both the captain of his high school basketball team and class valedictorian. He earned a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, where he was later awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. Wideman's literary career is marked by significant works, including the Homewood Trilogy, which delves into his family's history and the broader African American narrative from slavery onward. His novel *Philadelphia Fire* garnered multiple accolades, including the American Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, making him the first author to win the latter twice. In addition to fiction, Wideman has written impactful memoirs and nonfiction, reflecting on personal and societal issues, particularly surrounding race and justice. His honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature, underscoring his influence in contemporary literature. Wideman continues to contribute to discussions on race and history, with recent works like *Slaveroad*, which intertwines memoir and fiction.
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John Edgar Wideman
Writer
- Born: June 14, 1941
- Place of Birth: Washington, D.C.
Author Profile
Growing up in Homewood, an African American section of Pittsburgh, and attending public school, Wideman was every parent’s dream. Delivering newspapers after school, he learned to manage finances. He was careful to avoid getting in trouble. He cared about school, did his homework, and he was smart, but his first love was basketball. These were all winning characteristics, and Wideman was successful on and off the court.
In his senior year of high school, Wideman was the captain of the basketball team and the class valedictorian. He earned a four-year scholarship from the University of Pennsylvania. The poor young man from Homewood entered a new environment of books, exams, and wealthy classmates. The university gave Wideman choices that would change his life dramatically. In 1963, Wideman received a Rhodes Scholarship. He also became a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Wideman went on to teach at various universities.
In many ways, Wideman has left Homewood physically, emotionally, and spiritually behind. In his writing, however, Homewood has been a central focus. The Homewood Trilogy (1985), comprising Damballah (1981), Hiding Place (1981), and Sent for You Yesterday (1983), may be read as Wideman’s return to Homewood and his determination to find his identity. The trilogy is the story, from the times of slavery onward, of Wideman’s family. The trilogy is also about how creativity and imagination are important means of transcending despair. Sent for You Yesterday won the 1984 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.
Although Wideman’s 1990 postmodernist novel Philadelphia Fire does not take place in Homeland, it is set in Philadelphia, a city where Wideman spent time as a young adult. The novel, based on a 1985 police firebombing of a Philadelphia row house owned by an Afrocentric cult, is about the homecoming of a failed novelist who returns to investigate the fire, its victims, and a child who survived. The novel won both the 1991 American Book Award for fiction and the 1991 PEN/Faulkner Award. Wideman is the first author to win the PEN/Faulkner twice.
Wideman has published several other works of fiction, including the novels The Cattle Killing (1996), Two Cities (1998), and Fanon (2008); the story collections Fever (1989), The Stories of John Edgar Wideman (1992), God’s Gym (2005); and a volume of microfictions, Briefs: Stories for the Palm of the Mind (2010). His stories were published in the collection Look for Me and I'll Be Gone (2021). In 2024, Wideman published Slaveroad, in which he combines memoir and fiction to explore the impact of enslavement throughout American history.
In addition to fiction, Wideman has also written memoirs and other nonfiction. Brothers and Keepers (1984) is a nonfiction work about Wideman’s brother, who was incarcerated for murder, and how the two brother’s lives diverged from common beginnings. The work has deep implications for the lives and living conditions of African Americans. In Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers and Sons, Race and Society (1994), Wideman contemplates his relationships with his father and his son Jake, who was convicted of murdering another teenager and sentenced to life in prison. His other nonfiction titles include Hoop Roots (2001) and The Island: Martinique (2003).
In addition to the PEN/Faulkner Awards, Wideman’s many honors include a Lannan Literary Fellowship (1991), a MacArthur Fellowship (1993), the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for historical fiction (1996), the Rea Award for the Short Story (1998), and an O. Henry Award for best short story of the year (2000). Wildeman was granted an honorary doctorate from Duqesne University in 2017. In 2021, he was granted the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature.
In 2015 Wideman retired from teaching at Brown University, after teaching there for about ten years. That same year, he finished the manuscript for a book about Emmett Till, who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, and his father, Louis Till, who was executed by the US Army for crimes committed during World War II.
Bibliography
Auger, Philip. Native Sons in No Man’s Land: Rewriting Afro-American Manhood in the Novels of Baldwin, Walker, Wideman, and Gaines. New York: Garland, 2000. Print.
Bell, Bernard W. The Afro-American Novel and Its Tradition. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1987. Print
Byerman, Keith Eldon. John Edgar Wideman: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1998. Print.
Carpenter, Mackenzie. “John Edgar Wideman Working on Emmett Till Book.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. PG Publishing, 27 Mar. 2015. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
Coleman, James W. Blackness and Modernism: The Literary Career of John Edgar Wideman. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1990. Print.
Coleman, James W. “Going Back Home: The Literary Development of John Edgar Wideman.” CLA Journal 27 (1985): 326–43. Print.
Dubey, Madhu. “Literature and Urban Crisis: John Edgar Wideman’s Philadelphia Fire.” African American Review 32 (1998): 579–95. Print.
Gysin, Fritz. “John Edgar Wideman: ‘Fever.’” The African-American Short Story: 1970 to 1990. Ed. Wolfgang Karrer and Barbara Puschmann-Nalenz. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1993. Print.
Haber, Leigh. "On a Metaphorical 'Slaveroad,' the Pain and Growth are Quite Real." Los Angeles Times, 7 Oct. 2024, www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-10-05/book-review-slaveroad-john-edgar-wideman. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.
Mbalia, Doreatha D. John Edgar Wideman: Reclaiming the African Personality. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna UP, 1995. Print.
Morace, Robert A. “Philadelphia Fire.” Masterplots II: African American Literature, Revised Edition (2008): 1–4. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
O’Brien, John, ed. Interviews with Black Writers. New York: Liveright, 1973. Print.
Rushdy, Ashraf. “Fraternal Blues: John Edgar Wideman’s Homewood Trilogy.” Contemporary Literature 32.3 (1991): 312–45. Print.
Seidman, Barbara Kitt. “John Edgar Wideman.” Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition (2006): 1–12. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
TuSmith, Bonnie, ed. Conversations with John Edgar Wideman. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1998. Print.
Wideman, John Edgar. Hoop Roots. Boston: Houghton, 2001. Print.
Wideman, John Edgar. “John Edgar Wideman.” Conversations with American Novelists. Ed. Kay Bonetti, Greg Michaelson, Speer Morgan, Jo Sapp, and Sam Stowers. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1997. Print.
Wilson, Matthew. “The Circles of History in John Edgar Wideman’s The Homewood Trilogy.” CLA Journal 33 (1990): 239–59. Print.