August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle

by Alan Nadel

Just prior to his death in 2005, August Wilson, arguably the most important American playwright of the last quarter-century, completed an ambitious cycle of ten plays, each set in a different decade of the twentieth century. Known as the Twentieth-Century Cycle or the Pittsburgh Cycle, the plays, which portrayed the struggles of African-Americans, won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, a Tony Award for Best Play, and seven New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. August Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle is the first volume devoted to the last five plays of the cycle individually— Jitney, Seven Guitars , King Hedley II , Gem of the Ocean , and Radio Golf —and in the context of Wilson's entire body of work.  Editor Alan Nadel's May All Your Fences Have Essays on the Drama of August Wilson , a work Henry Louis Gates called definitive, focused on the first five plays of Wilson's cycle. This new collection examines from myriad perspectives the way Wilson's final works give shape and focus to his complete dramatic opus. It contains an outstanding and diverse array of discussions from leading Wilson scholars and literary critics. Together, the essays in Nadel's two volumes give Wilson's work the breadth of analysis and understanding that this major figure of American drama merits. Contributors Herman Beavers Yvonne Chambers Soyica Diggs Colbert Harry J. Elam, Jr. Nathan Grant David LaCroix Barbara Lewis Alan Nadel Donald E. Pease Sandra Shannon Vivian Gist Spencer Anthony Stewart Steven C. Tracy Dana Williams Kimmika L. H. Williams-Witherspoon

248 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2010

About the author

Alan Nadel is the Bryan Chair of American literature and culture at the University of Kentucky, where he teaches literature and film. He is the editor of May All Your Fences Have Gates (Iowa, 1993) and the author of Invisible Criticism: Ralph Ellison and the American Canon (Iowa, 1991), Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism, and the Atomic Age, Flatlining on the Field of Dreams: Cultural Narratives in the Films of President Reagan's America, and Television in Black and White America: Race and National Identity.

Reviews

[Jennifer DuBose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great to accompany the Pittsburgh Cycle. I recommend this to anyone reading Wilson’s plays, especially if you are a WASP like me and you don’t want to draw false conclusions about the meaning based on your own privilege. It’s always a good idea to read as much as you can about these kinds of monumental works before you come up with your own ideas. It’s an even better idea if your demographic does not match that of the main characters in the work or of the author. There is so much to learn and unpack from Wilson’s plays and I highly recommend this to help you do that.