
Philadelphia Fire
John Edgar Wideman(Author)
Scribner Book Company (Publisher)
Published on 6. October 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
208 pages
978-1-9821-4884-3 (ISBN)
Description
One of John Wideman’s most ambitious and celebrated works, the lyrical masterpiece and PEN/Faulkner winner inspired by the 1985 police bombing of the West Philadelphia row house owned by black liberation group Move.
In 1985, police bombed a West Philadelphia row house owned by the Afrocentric cult known as Move, killing eleven people and starting a fire that destroyed sixty other houses. At the heart of Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighborhood after spending a decade fleeing from his past, and who becomes obsessed with the search for a lone survivor of the event: a young boy seen running from the flames.
Award-winning author John Edgar Wideman brings these events and their repercussions to shocking life in this seminal novel about identity after tragedy. “Reminiscent of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man” (Time) and Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, Philadelphia Fire is a masterful, culturally significant work that explores a major historical event and takes us on a brutally honest journey through the despair and horror of life in urban America.
In 1985, police bombed a West Philadelphia row house owned by the Afrocentric cult known as Move, killing eleven people and starting a fire that destroyed sixty other houses. At the heart of Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighborhood after spending a decade fleeing from his past, and who becomes obsessed with the search for a lone survivor of the event: a young boy seen running from the flames.
Award-winning author John Edgar Wideman brings these events and their repercussions to shocking life in this seminal novel about identity after tragedy. “Reminiscent of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man” (Time) and Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, Philadelphia Fire is a masterful, culturally significant work that explores a major historical event and takes us on a brutally honest journey through the despair and horror of life in urban America.
More details
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
181 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-9821-4884-3 (9781982148843)
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
10/2020
1st Edition
Scribner
€12.85
Available for download
Person
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.