Summary
From "master of language" ( The New York Times ) John Edgar Wideman, a reissue of the revered trilogy that launched his career--two novels and story collection all set in Wideman's own hometown.
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. The novels Hiding Place and Sent for You Yesterday personalize and interrogate that history's presence in the contemporary lives of Homewood people and all Americans.
Deeply concerned that designations such as "economically oppressed" or "Black" continue to dismiss and marginalize rather than embrace communities like the one in which he was raised, John Edgar Wideman--employing words on the page as his weapon--has dedicated himself to recording the weight, beauty, complexity, and justice that he believes Homewood's voices, stories, and lives have earned and deserve.
In 1983, The Homewood Trilogy signaled the arrival of a major voice in American literature. Forty years later, this edition of the Trilogy celebrates Wideman's ongoing contribution by offering these masterworks to a new generation of readers.
Writer John Edgar Wideman was born in Washington, D. C., on June 14, 1941. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, studied at Oxford University, and was the second African American to become a Rhodes Scholar.
He taught at the University of Pennsylvania and eventually founded and chaired the African American studies department. He also taught at the University of Wyoming and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Wideman is the author of more than a dozen books. Sent for You Yesterday won a PEN/Faulkner Award in 1984, and Philadelphia Fire received one a decade later. Fatheralong was a finalist for the National Book Award (1994) and Brothers and Keepers was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (1995).
(Bowker Author Biography)
