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Philadelphia Fire
A Historical Fiction Novel by John Edgar Wideman
Subgenres:
- African American Historical Fiction,
- Urban Fiction,
- Literary Historical Fiction
This book is for you if you're into...
- Fiction rooted in real-life urban tragedy and aftermath
- Stories of exiles haunted by the past and searching for meaning
- Narratives exploring the impact of violence on a community
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.
Philadelphia Fire is a masterful, culturally significant work that takes on a major historical event and takes us on a brutally honest journey through the despair and horror of life in urban America.
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