John Edgar Wideman, 10th Annual ODU Literary Festival

John Wideman

Document Type

Featured Participant

Festival Date

10-8-1987

Location

Newport News Room, Webb Center; Mills Godwin Life Sciences Auditorium

Author/Artist Bio

John Edgar Wideman is a native of Homewood, a suburb of Pittsburgh. He was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. A professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Wideman is the author of seven novels. Damballah, Hiding Place, and Sent for You Yesterday (winner of the PEN Faulkner award) were published under one cover as The Homewood Trilogy. Using music as a dominant, organizing metaphor, his work explores the inner lives of black Americans, attempting to mirror the characters' "sense of themselves as spiritual beings in a realm that rises above racial stereotypes and socioeconomic statistics." His widely acclaimed nonfiction volume Brothers and Keepers reconstructs the tragic train of events that caused one young man to die and three others— one Wideman's brother—to be sent to prison for life.

Booklist: A Glance Away; Hurry Home; The Lynchers; Damballah; Hiding Place; Sent for You Yesterday; Brothers and Keepers; Reuben.

Description

John Edgar Wideman gave a talk entitled "Homewood" at 1 p.m., Thursday, October 8, in the Newport News Room, Webb Center.

He also read from his new and published work at 8:00 that evening in Mills Godwin Auditorium.

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