John Edgar Wideman is Asa Messer Professor and professor of Africana studies and English at Brown University. He was the first individual to win the PEN/Faulkner Award twice – in 1984 for Sent for You Yesterday and in 1990 for Philadelphia Fire. His second memoir, Fatheralong, was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is the recipient of many other awards and honors, including the O. Henry Award, the American Book Award for Fiction, the Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, and a MacArthur Fellowship. His articles on Malcolm X, Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Michael Jordan, Emmett Till, and Thelonius Monk have appeared in The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Emerge, and the New York Times Magazine. Professor Wideman is also subject of the text Conversations with John Edgar Wideman, a collection of 19 interviews spanning three decades.
This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.
The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?
