Philadelphia Fire

"Daring and award-winning ... Wideman's quasi-cubist approach to storytelling -- full of angular sentence shards and deft rule-breaking -- explores multiple facets of the tragedy and sometimes drags the reader and the author himself onto the page." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia Fire, now with a new introduction by prominent scholar and award-winning writer Imani Perry, is a masterful culturally significant work that takes on a 1985 police bombing in Philadelphia, which targeted the Black liberation group known as MOVE. At the heart of the novel is Cudjoe, a writer and exile returned to his old neighborhood, who becomes obsessed with the search for a young boy seen running from the flames. One of Wideman's most ambitious and celebrated works, Philadelphia Fire depicts a brutally honest journey through uniquely American despair.

John Edgar Wideman's books include, among others, Languages of Home, Slaveroad, Look for Me and I'll Be Gone, You Made Me Love You, The Homewood Trilogy, American Histories, Writing to Save a Life, Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire, Hoop Roots, and Sent for You Yesterday. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award twice and has twice been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and National Book Award. He is a MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. He divides his time between New York and France.