Showing results for "August" in Biographies

August Wilson (1945-2005) was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who had a particular talent for capturing the authentic everyday voice of black Americans. As a child, he read off soup cans and cereal boxes, and when his mother brought him to the library, his whole world opened up. After facing intense prejudice at school from both students and some teachers, August dropped out. However, he continued reading and educating himself independently.

August Wilson grew up open to the creative inspiration in everything he encountered: in library books, in music, in artworks, in the lively conversations overheard in the restaurants and barbershops lining the Pittsburgh neighborhood of his childhood. August paid attention. He listened. And when he got older, he got ideas about what to do with everything he’d seen and heard—ideas that would make him one of the greatest playwrights in American history.

One of America's favorite African-American storytellers remembers her childhood in tender, unforgettable new stories: "My Grandmother's Treasure," "The Big Cotton Patch," "Miss Maetroy's Flower Bed," and more.