John Edgar Wideman

A philosopher, psychiatrist, and political activist, Frantz Fanon was a fierce, acute critic of racism and oppression. Born of African descent in Martinique in 1925, Fanon fought in defense of France during World War II but later against France in Algeria's war for independence. His last book, The Wretched of the Earth, published in 1961, inspired leaders of diverse liberation movements: Steve Biko in South Africa, Che Guevara in Latin America, the...

In God's Gym, the celebrated author John Edgar Wideman offers stories that pulse with emotional electricity. The ten pieces here explore strength, both physical and spiritual. The collection opens with a man paying tribute to the quiet fortitude of his mother, a woman who "should wear a T-shirt: God's Gym." In the stories that follow, Wideman delivers powerful riffs on family and fate, basketball and belief. His mesmerizing prose features guest appearances...

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.

Story of Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighborhood after spending a decade fleeing from his past. Inspired by the 1985 police bombing of a West Philadelphia row house owned by the back-to-nature, Afrocentric cult known as Move.

A novel on the black ghetto in Pittsburgh featuring Kassima, a woman whose husband died of aids and whose two sons were killed in street-gang violence. Out of loneliness she takes in a man who is a photographer and the novel describes the relationship that develops.