Books by August Wilson

NOW A NETFLIX FILM STARRING VIOLA DAVIS AND CHADWICK BOSEMAN *Two stunning, intensely powerful modern classics about race in 20th century America from the legendary Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright August Wilson*In Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the great blues diva Ma Rainey is due to arrive at a run-down Chicago recording studio with her entourage to cut new sides of old favourites. Waiting for her are the black musicians in her band - and the white owners of the record company. A tense, searing account of racism in jazz-era America that the New Yorker called 'a genuine work of art'. Fences centres on Troy Maxson, a garbage collector, an embittered former baseball player and a proud, dominating father, in 1950s Pittsburgh. When college athletic recruiters scout his teenage son, Troy struggles against his young son's ambition, his wife, who he understands less and less, and his own frustrated dreams. 'A prolific and successful playwright who confines his themes to African American culture... The level of his achievement is high. This comes powerfully into view when the play is read, an activity for me that is equal to, and in some ways more fruitful than, seeing its stage production.' Toni Morrison'In his work, August Wilson depicted the struggles of Black Americans with uncommon lyrical richness, theatrical density and emotional heft, in plays that give vivid voices to people on the frayed margins of life' New York Times 'August Wilson has established himself as the richest theatrical voice to emerge in the U.S. since Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller' Time

Full Length, Tragic comedy Characters: 4 male, 3 female Exterior Set The sixth in the author's decade by decade exploration of the black experience in America, two of which have won Pulitzer Prizes, Seven Guitars is part bawdy comedy, part dark elegy and part mystery. In the backyard of a Pittsburgh tenement in 1948, friends gather to mourn for a blues guitarist and singer who died just as his career was on the verge of taking off. The action that follows is

Drama Characters: 8 male, 1 female Interior SetSet in 1970 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh that is served by a makeshift taxi company, Jitney is a beautiful addition to the author's decade by decade cycle of plays about the black American experience in the twentieth century. "Explosive... Crackles with theatrical energy."-N.Y. Daily News "Could be described as just a lot of men sitting around talking. But the talk has such varied range and mus

Play with music Characters: 8 males (5 black, 3 white) 2 black females Scenery: Unit set It's 1927 in a rundown studio in Chicago where Ma Rainey is recording new sides of old favorites. More goes down in the session than music in this riveting portrayal of rage, racism, the self hate and exploitation. "Searing ... funny, salty, carnal and lyrical.... Wilson has lighted a dramatic fuse that snakes and hisses through several anguished eras of American life. When the fuse reaches its e