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John Edgar Wideman

ジョン・エドガー・ワイドマン

John Edgar Wideman

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1941-06-14 （Washington, D.C., U.S.）
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Residence History
Homewood, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania → New York City (Lower East Side) → France (resident) → Providence, Rhode Island (Brown University) → Laramie, Wyoming (academic appointment)

Career

Occupations
novelist, short story writer, memoirist, essayist, professor (emeritus)
Active Years
1967-
Affiliations
University of Pennsylvania (faculty), University of Wyoming (faculty), University of Massachusetts Amherst (faculty), Brown University (Asa Messer Professor; emeritus)
Memberships
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected member), American Academy of Arts and Letters (elected member), American Philosophical Society (elected member)
Influenced By
W. E. B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner
Influenced
Contemporary American writers and scholars (broad influence)

Education

University of Pennsylvania
English
Degree: Bachelor's (英語)
Period: 1959–1963/64
Year of Graduation: 1964
Country: United States
Excelled in basketball; elected to Phi Beta Kappa; named a Rhodes Scholar while an undergraduate
University of Oxford (Rhodes Scholar)
English (thesis on 18th-century British fiction)
Degree: BPhil
Period: 1963–1966
Year of Graduation: 1966
Country: United Kingdom
Played and captained the Oxford University men's basketball team
Iowa Writers' Workshop (University of Iowa)
Creative writing
Period: 1966–1967
Year of Graduation: 1967
Country: United States
Studied under Kurt Vonnegut and José Donoso

Awards

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
1984
Work: Sent for You Yesterday
Organization: PEN/Faulkner Foundation
Result: winner
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
1991
Work: Philadelphia Fire
Organization: PEN/Faulkner Foundation
Result: winner
MacArthur Fellowship
1993
Organization: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Result: fellowship
Prix Femina Étranger
2017
Work: Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File
Organization: Prix Femina
Result: winner
PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story
2019
Organization: PEN America / PEN/Faulkner
Result: winner
Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards (Lifetime Achievement)
2011
Organization: Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
Result: winner
American Book Award
1991
Work: Philadelphia Fire
Organization: Before Columbus Foundation
Result: winner

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

A Glance Away

1967 novel

Early novel showcasing seeds of Wideman's later stylistic concerns.

identityalienation

Hiding Place

1981 novel

Part of the Homewood books; explores family, community, and memory.

familymemoryrace

Sent for You Yesterday

1983 novel

Central novel of the Homewood trilogy, focusing on community and the shadows of the past.

communitylegacystorytelling

Brothers and Keepers

1984 nonfiction / memoir

A memoir alternating between Wideman and his incarcerated brother, examining criminal justice, family, and forgiveness.

criminal justicefamilyforgivenesstrauma

Philadelphia Fire

1990 novel

Inspired by the MOVE bombing; centers on an individual's search amid urban violence and communal trauma.

urban violencesearch for truthfamily

Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File

2016 nonfiction / historical inquiry

A hybrid investigation into the life of Louis Till, combining fact and imaginative reconstruction to examine race and history.

historyracememory

Slaveroad

2024 nonfiction / essays

A series of short essays exploring the slave trade and its legacies, evoked through personal and imaginative inquiry.

legacy of slaveryhistorical memorythe sea

Bibliography

  • A Glance Away (1967)
  • Hurry Home (1970)
  • The Lynchers (1973)
  • Hiding Place (1981)
  • Damballah (1981)
  • Sent for You Yesterday (1983)
  • Brothers and Keepers (1984)
  • Reuben (1987)
  • Fever (1989)
  • Philadelphia Fire (1990)
  • The Cattle Killing (1996)
  • Two Cities (1998)
  • Hoop Roots (2001)
  • God's Gym (2005)
  • Fanon (2008)
  • Briefs (2010)
  • Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File (2016)
  • American Histories (2018)
  • You Made Me Love You: Selected Stories, 1981–2018 (2021)
  • Look for Me and I'll Be Gone (2021)
  • Slaveroad (2024)

Adaptations

  • Theatrical adaptation of Briefs (Los Angeles, 2018)
  • Witness: The John Edgar Wideman Experience (reading/theatre program)

Translations of Works

  • Many works have been translated into French, Spanish, German, and other languages

Style & Themes

Literary Style
experimental and complex stylemixes African-American Vernacular English with standard Englishuses sentence fragments and occasionally very long sentencessometimes omits conventional punctuationblends nonfiction and fiction
Recurring Motifs
family and fathers/sonsstorytelling/narrationHomewood (Pittsburgh) communitytrauma and healingrace and justice

Legacy

John Edgar Wideman is a widely acclaimed writer known for experimental prose and works focusing on the African-American experience. His oeuvre is the subject of extensive scholarly study and has been translated internationally.

Academic Societies

  • John Edgar Wideman Society
  • American Literature Association (associated)

Archives

  • John Edgar Wideman Papers held at the Houghton Library, Harvard University

In Popular Culture

  • Appearances on programs such as The Charlie Rose Show

Quotes

  • I was running away from Pittsburgh, from poverty, from blackness. To get ahead, to make something of myself, college had seemed a logical, necessary step.
    Source: Brothers and Keepers (memoir) (1984)

Trivia

  • One of the first writers to win the PEN/Faulkner Award twice (1984, 1991).
  • Named a Rhodes Scholar in 1963.
  • The criminal cases involving his son and brother have significantly influenced his writing.
  • Daughter Jamila Wideman was a high WNBA draft pick and later worked for the NBA.
  • His papers are housed at the Houghton Library, Harvard University.