John Edgar Wideman Bücher

Philadelphia im Jahr 1793. In der Stadt wütet das Gelbfieber. Ein junger schwarzer Wanderprediger irrt auf der verzweifelten Suche nach einer mysteriösen afrikanischen Frau durch die Stadt. Doch sein Versuch, sie zu finden und zu retten, treibt ihn immer mehr in eine Gesellschaft, die von Gewalt und Hass beherrscht ist - und in der Weiß und Schwarz strikt getrennt sind. Philadelphia im Jahr 1793. In der Stadt wütet das Gelbfieber. Ein junger schwarzer Wanderprediger irrt auf der verzweifelten Suche nach einer mysteriösen afrikanischen Frau durch die Stadt. Doch sein Versuch, sie zu finden und zu retten, treibt ihn immer mehr in eine Gesellschaft, die von Gewalt und Hass beherrscht ist - und in der Weiß und Schwarz strikt getrennt sind.

A stunning collection of all new stories from the twice winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award - essential reading for understanding the state of America today

Edgar Wideman’s The Homewood Books   is so named because they share characters, events, and locales, these two novels-- Hiding Place and Sent for You Yesterday -- and one collection of short stories -- Damballa h-- are set in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, where Wideman was raised. As Wideman writes in his introduction to this edition, the three books “offer a continuous investigation, from many angles, not so much of a physical location, Homewood, . . . but of a culture, a way of seeing and being seen.”  Three voices and three perspectives dominate the story narrated in Hiding Place : Bess, who has lost a son to the war, living a hermetic existence of Bruston Hill; tommy, who is fleeing the police for a murder charge he is not guilty of; and Clement, a simple boy who makes deliveries to Bess’s house. Damballah is a powerful collection of interrelated stories spanning a century in Homewood.  The tales celebrate a community of people who, in the face of crisis, need, and fear, uphold each other through grace, courage, and dignity. Winner of the 1984 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and named as one of the fifteen best books of 1983 by the New York Times Book Review, Sent for You Yesterday traces, through its narrator, Doot, the intertwining lives through time of the inhabitants of Homewood-- Lucy, Brother Tate, Albert Wilkes, Carl French, and their ancestors and offspring--- from the blues-oriented 1920s to the drug-influenced 1970s.

Reuben is an aging, wizened, slightly humpbacked black man. He lives in an abandoned trailer so cluttered with the detritus of his sixty years that visitors can scarcely find him amid the litter. Yet Reuben is also intelligent-street smart and plain smart-kind, thoughtful and possessed of an extraordinarily sharp legal mind. As a lawyer, he is the go between for the poor black of Homewood who must deal with the authorities' downtown. (Taken from inside front jacket).

Fifty-seven short stories drawn from past collections celebrate the lifelong significance of this major American writer's essential contribution to a form--illuminating the ways that he has made it his own.

Frantz Fanon's life and legacy serve as the backdrop for a contemporary African American novelist's project to write about him. The narrative weaves through various locations, including Manhattan, Paris, and Algeria, blending genres such as whodunit, screenplay, and love story. As the novelist explores Fanon's impact on liberation movements and confronts the persistent racism and oppression in a post-9/11 world, the story also introduces notable figures like French director Jean-Luc Godard, creating an electrifying commentary on Fanon's enduring relevance.

Eleven people – five of them children – are killed in west Philadelphia when 6221 Osage Avenue is bombed out of existence. One small boy is seen to escape the fire. From his life of self-exile on an island in the Aegean, Cudjoe mourns the child until it becomes an obsession, leading him home, forcing him to face up to his own profound alienation and to the wrenching realities of his native land. He searches for the boy and, as he does so, he searches out his own past. Reconstructing his life plunges him backwards into memories both personal and communal, forwards inch by inch into a city fast becoming a nightmare. ‘Wideman’s novel succeeds through raw emotion and a linguistic versatility . . . Written in a sinewy language which also combines reportage, Philadelphia Fire operates as parable and social document’ Irish Times ‘Philadelphia Fire is a welter of fine writing, sociological observation, polemical address and messianic prophecy . . . A literary novel in the grand contemporary, postmodern, literary style’ New Statesman & Society ‘Unquestionably the foremost chronicler of the urban African-American experience. A master storyteller, Wideman is both a witness and a prophet’ Caryl Phillips