The Homewood Trilogy by John Edgar Wideman

“Master of language” (The New York Times) John Edgar Wideman’s first-ever collection of his most revered works—two novels and story collection all set in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Homewood where he grew up.

Damballah, Hiding Place, and Sent for You Yesterday provide a stunning introduction to the uncompromising work of John Edgar Wideman, whose literary achievements have inspired The New York Times to name him “one of America’s premier writers of fiction.”

Damballah’s narratives examine the vexed history of Homewood, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhood whose origins are rooted in a time when slavery was still legal in the United States of America. The novels Hiding Place and Sent for You Yesterday personalize and interrogate that history’s presence in the contemporary lives of Homewood people and all Americans.

Deeply concerned that designations such as “economically oppressed” or “Black” continue to dismiss and marginalize rather than embrace communities like the one in which he was raised, John Edgar Wideman—employing words on the page as his weapon—has dedicated himself to recording the weight, beauty, complexity, and justice that he believes Homewood’s voices, stories, and lives have earned and deserve.

In 1983, The Homewood Trilogy signaled the arrival of a major voice in American literature. Forty years later, this edition of the Trilogy celebrates Wideman’s ongoing contribution by offering these masterworks to a new generation of readers.

John Edgar Wideman’s books include, among others, Look for Me and I’ll Be Gone, American Histories, Writing to Save a Life, Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire, Fatheralong, Hoop Roots, and Sent for You Yesterday. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award twice and has twice been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and National Book Award. He is a MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. He divides his time between New York and France.