Wilson, August

Wilson, August (1945–), born and raised in Pittsburgh by a poor family, although he said, “My generation of blacks knew very little about the past of our parents.” He dropped out of school at 16 and, in addition to working at menial jobs, wrote poems and plays. His plays included Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), in which a blues singer and others suffer racist treatment. It was followed by Fences (1985)—like its predecessor published a year after production—about the troubles of two generations of black athletes, and Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1986), concerning an ex‐convict's troubles. Fences was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, as was his later play, The Piano Lesson, first produced in 1987, dealing with a dispute between a brother and sister over a handsome piano they have inherited: he wants to sell it and buy some land on which his family lived as slaves and she wants to retain it as an elegant souvenir of those ancestors. The dramas Two Trains Running (1992), Seven Guitars (1996), and King Hedley II (1999) continued Wilson's exploration of African‐American life through the twentieth century.