On Thursday, February 5, 7:00 P.M. at the University of Minnesota Cowles Auditorium, AA&AS professor Alexs Pate discusses the state of the art of African American literature with John Edgar Wideman, the author of more than 18 books of fiction and nonfiction. Wideman was the first writer to win the PEN/Faulkner Award twice, in 1984 for Sent for You Yesterday and in 1990 for Philadelphia Fire. His memoir Brothers and Keepers received a National Book Critics Circle nomination, and his memoir Fatheralong was a finalist for the National Book Award. In addition, he has won the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Lannan Foundation Fellowship for Fiction, and the MacArthur grant. Wideman's articles on Malcolm X, Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Michael Jordan, Eminem, Thelonious Monk, and others have appeared in The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Emerge, and The New York Times Magazine. Wideman is on the faculty of the African Studies Department of Brown University. The NOMMO African American Author Series is sponsored by the Givens Foundation for African American Literature in partnership with the University of Minnesota and the Friends of the University Libraries.
