ByPatti Hartigan

August Wilson wrote a series of ten plays celebrating African American life in the 20th century, one play for each decade. No other American playwright has completed such an ambitious oeuvre. Two of the plays became successful films,Fences, starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis; andMa Raineys Black Bottom, starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman.FencesandThe Piano Lessonwon the Pulitzer Prize for Drama;Fenceswon the Tony Award for Best Play, and years after Wilsons death in 2005,Jitneyearned a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.

Through his brilliant use of vernacular speech, Wilson developed unforgettable characters who epitomized the trials and triumphs of the African American experience. He said that he didnt research his plays but wrote them from the bloods memory, a sense of racial history that he believed African Americans shared. Author and theater critic Patti Hartigan traced his ancestry back to slavery, and his plays echo with uncanny similarities to the history of his ancestors. She interviewed Wilson many times before his death and traces his life from his childhood in Pittsburgh (where nine of the plays take place) to Broadway. She also interviewed scores of friends, theater colleagues and family members, and conducted extensive research to tell the absorbing, richly detailed (Chicago Tribune) story of a writer who left an indelible imprint on American theater and opened the door for future playwrights of color.