Fires in the Mirror
Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities
Published on 1. September 1993
Book
Paperback/Softback
208 pages
978-0-385-47014-8 (ISBN)
Description
Derived from interviews with a wide range of people who experienced or observed New York's 1991 Crown Heights racial riots, Fires In The Mirror is as distinguished a work of commentary on black-white tensions as it is a work of drama. In August 1991 simmering tensions in the racially polarized Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Crown Heights exploded into riots after a black boy was killed by a car in a rabbi's motorcade and a Jewish student was slain by blacks in retaliation. Fires in the Mirror is dramatist Anna Deavere Smith's stunning exploration of the events and emotions leading up to and following the Crown Heights conflict. Through her portrayals of more than two dozen Crown eights adversaries, victims, and eyewitnesses, using verbatim excerpts from their observations derived from interviews she conducted, Smith provides a brilliant, Rashoman-like documentary portrait of contemporary ethnic turmoil.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Random House USA Inc
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 201 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
181 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-385-47014-8 (9780385470148)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
01/2015
Anchor
€15.99
Available for download
Person
Anna Deavere Smith is an actor, a teacher, a playwright, and the creator of an acclaimed series of one-woman plays based on her interviews with diverse voices from communities in crisis. She has won two Obie Awards; two Tony nominations for her play Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; and a MacArthur Fellowship. Smith was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her play Fires in the Mirror. She has worked in television on The Practice and The West Wing, and has had roles in the films Philadelphia, The American President, and The Human Stain. Smith is the founder and director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue and is a professor at New York University, with an appointment in the Tisch School of the Arts and an affiliation with the School of Law.