Description: A comprehensive introduction to the work of the preeminent Afro-American playwright of his generation, focusing on Wilson's ten-play cycle and their context.
Brief description: Alan Nadel, William T. Bryan Chair in American Literature and Culture at the University of Kentucky, is the author of Invisible Criticism: Ralph Ellison and the American Canon, and has edited two collections of essays on August Wilson, May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson and August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle. He has written several other books including Television in Black-and-White America: Race and National Identity. His essays on post-World War II American literature, film, drama, and culture have appeared in numerous journals, and he has won prizes for the best essay in Modern Fiction Studies and in PMLA.
Review Quotes: "The Theatre of August Wilson is an illuminating examination of Wilson's ten-play African American history cycle as US history. For the benefit of those who need it, Nadel (Univ. of Kentucky) provides a refresher on Plessy v. Ferguson and the theological disputes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X alongside explanations of how Wilson's plays reflect and interrogate these and other historical milestones ... Summing Up: Recommended." - CHOICE