Celebrated Author John Edgar Wideman to Speak at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – Contemporary writer John Edgar Wideman will give a reading on Wednesday, Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross.  A distinguished author of over 20 works of fiction and non-fiction, Wideman will read a selection from his recent works.  The event, sponsored by the College’s Creative Writing Program and the Jenks Chair of Contemporary Letters, is free and open to the public.

Wideman was the first author to win the International PEN/Faulkner Award twice, first in 1984 for Sent for You Yesterday, the third novel in a trilogy set in the historic African American community of Homewood, Wideman’s childhood neighborhood, in Pittsburgh.  He won the award again in 1990 for Philadelphia Fire, based on the Philadelphia police department’s bombing of a house where a group of black activists lived.

Wideman’s many honors also include a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the O. Henry Award, the American Book Award for Fiction, the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction, and the Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction.  Wideman’s memoir Brothers and Keepers (1984)—a project undertaken in cooperation with his brother Robby, who is serving life in prison—was a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award.

His most recent books are Fanon (2008), a novel inspired by Frantz Fanon, the revolutionary philosopher, and Briefs (2010), a volume of “microstories.”

He has written articles on Malcolm X, Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Michel Jordan, Emmett Till, Thelonius Monk, and women’s professional basketball that have appeared in The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Emerge, and The New York Times Magazine.

Wideman is the Asa Messer professor and professor of Africana Studies and English at Brown University.  He also currently serves on the editorial board of the literary journal Conjunctions.