August Wilson

August Wilson (April 27, 1945 ? October 2, 2005) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright. His singular achievement and literary legacy is a cycle of ten plays, each set in a different decade, depicting the comedy and tragedy of the African-American experience in the 20th century.

Biography

Born Frederick August Kittel in Pittsburgh's Hill District, fourth of six children of Frederick Kittel, an immigrant German baker who seldom spent time with his family, and Daisy Wilson Kittel, an African-American cleaning woman from North Carolina. Earlier, his maternal grandmother walked from North Carolina to Pennsylvania in search of a better life. Wilson's mother raised her children in a Bedford Avenue two-room apartment behind a grocery store. This poor neighborhood was inhabited by black Americans, Italians, and Jews. Daisy supported her family as a cleaning lady.

Related Topics:
Pittsburgh - Hill District - German - African-American - North Carolina - Pennsylvania

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Wilson changed his name to honor his mother, when his father died in 1965. That same year he discovered the blues as sung by Bessie Smith and bought a typewriter for twenty dollars and started writing poetry.

Related Topics:
Blues - Bessie Smith

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During Wilson's teen years, his mother married David Bedford, and the Bedford family moved from the Hill to a then predominantly white working-class neighborhood, Hazelwood (Pittsburgh), in the late 1950s. There, they encountered racial hostility; bricks were thrown through a window at their new home.

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Wilson was the only black student at Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School in 1959; threats and abuse drove him away, but Connelley Vocational High School proved unchallenging. He dropped out of Gladstone High School in the 10th grade in 1960 when a teacher accused him of plagiarizing a 20-page paper on Napoleon.

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Wilson made such extensive use of the Carnegie Library to educate himself that they later awarded him a degree, the only such one they have awarded. Wilson, who had learned to read at age four, began reading black writers there at age 12 and spent the remainder of his teen years educating himself by reading Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, and others.

Related Topics:
Carnegie Library - Ralph Ellison - Richard Wright - Langston Hughes - Arna Bontemps

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By this time, Wilson knew that he wanted to be a writer but this created tension with his mother, who wanted him to become a lawyer. She forced him to leave the family home and he enlisted in the United States Army for a three-year stint in 1962, but left after one year and went back to working odd jobs such as a porter, short-order cook, gardener, and dishwasher.

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In 1968, Wilson co-founded the Black Horizon Theater in the Hill District of Pittsburgh along with fellow resident Rob Penny, who went on to become associate professor of Africana studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Wilson served as a scriptwriter and director for the next ten years. Among his early efforts there was Jitney, which he revised more than two decades later as part of his 10-play cycle on twentieth century Pittsburgh.

Related Topics:
Rob Penny - University of Pittsburgh

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Wilson married for the first time to Brenda Burton in 1969. That same year, his stepfather David Bedford died. His oldest daughter, Sakina Ansari Wilson, was born January 22, 1970. The marriage ended in 1972.

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In 1976 Dr. Vernell Lillie, founder of the the Kuntu Repertory Theatre two years earlier, directed Wilson's The Homecoming. That same year Wilson saw Sizwe Bansi Is Dead at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, his first professional play. Wilson and Penny also started the Kuntu Writers Workshop to bring writers together in a meaningful discussion and to assist writers with getting published and/or produced. Both organizations are still active to this day.

Related Topics:
Vernell Lillie - Kuntu Repertory Theatre - Kuntu Writers Workshop

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In 1978 Wilson moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota at the suggestion of his friend director Claude Purdy, who helped him secure a job writing educational scripts for the Science Museum of Minnesota. In 1980 he received a fellowship for the Minneapolis Playwrights Center.

Related Topics:
Saint Paul, Minnesota - Claude Purdy - Science Museum of Minnesota - Minneapolis Playwrights Center

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In 1981 he was married for the second of three times to Judy Oliver, a social worker. They divorced in 1990. That same year Wilson moved to Seattle.

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On August 26, 2005, he told his hometown newspaper, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer in June of 2005 and given 3 to 5 months to live. He died on October 2, 2005 at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington.

Related Topics:
August 26 - 2005 - The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Liver cancer - October 2 - Swedish Medical Center - Seattle, Washington

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Wilson was married three times, and had two daughters: Sakina Ansari, from his first marriage and Azula Carmen with his wife, costume designer Constanza Romero.

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