American · b. 1941
John Edgar Wideman won the PEN/Faulkner Award twice—for "Sent for You Yesterday" and "Philadelphia Fire"—and has been a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. The American author writes about Black life in Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood and Philadelphia, blending fiction, memoir, and essay. Wideman's formal experiments serve his examination of race, family, and American violence.