August Wilson: A Life

"Ever since Ma Rainey's Black Bottom captivated Broadway audiences, August Wilson established himself as the most important American playwright of the last fifty years. His decade-by-decade cycle of ten plays about the African American experience in the twentieth century put Black life center stage, celebrating themes and voices that had been sorely missing from Broadway and regional theaters nationwide. His prolific body of work, as well as his advocacy for equity in the nation's theaters, paved the way for a new generation of African American playwrights. Wilson's life is the quintessential American story, a winding tale that took him from a two-room cold-water flat in Pittsburgh to the nation's most prestigious stages. His life is full of paradox as well as poetic justice. A precocious young man who dropped out of high school because of racism and intolerance, he went on to win a Tony Award and two Pulitzer Prizes for drama. He wrote flowery verse as a young aspiring poet but found his voice when he learned to listen to the people around him and tell their stories in their own words. He wrote often about fathers and sons but was raised by a single mother and never fully resolved questions about his biological father. His success was due in part to the guidance of his mentor, the acclaimed director Lloyd Richards, whom he referred to as "Pops," but the two men eventually parted ways in a tragic, acrimonious split. No one has written more brilliantly about the trials and triumphs of African American life than August Wilson -- from Fences to Jitney to Joe Turner's Come and Gone. A prodigious reader and autodidact, Wilson said he never did research but instead drew on what he called "the blood's memory," an uncanny reimagining of his own family history and, by extension, that of all African Americans. He ultimately achieved his oft-stated goal: to turn ordinary Black Americans into kings and queens. Author and theater critic Patti Hartigan knew Wilson and interviewed him many times. She conducted exhaustive research, including interviews with friends, colleagues, and family members, to tell the definitive story of a playwright who left his indelible imprint on American theater" --