Publisher's Synopsis
This study of the playwright August Wilson emphasizes his African-American language forms, histories and identities, examining in particular his linguistic and metaphoric borrowing from the blues. It examines aesthetic debates on African-American artistes from the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. After establishing the cultural and artistic setting, the study then devotes a chapter each to Wilson's most celebrated plays: "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", "Fences", "Joe Turner's Come and Gone", "The Piano Lesson", "Two Trains Running" and "Seven Guitars".
