John Edgar Wideman has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators. The most-rated is Writing to Save a Life.
American Histories
Summary
In this singular collection, John Edgar Wideman, the acclaimed author of Writing to Save a Life, blends the personal, historical, and political to invent complex, charged stories about love, death, struggle, and what we owe each other. With characters ranging from everyday Americans to Jean-Michel Basquiat to Nat Turner, American Histories is a journey through time, experience, and the soul of our country. "JB & FD" reimagines conversations between John Brown, the antislavery crusader who famously raided Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and orator, conversations that belie the myth of race and produce a fantastical, ethically rich correspondence that spans years and ideologies. "Maps and Ledgers" eavesdrops on a brother and sister today as they ponder their father's killing of another man. "Williamsburg Bridge" sits inside a man sitting on a bridge who contemplates his life before he decides to jump. "My Dead" is a story about how the already-departed demand more time, more space in the lives of those who survive them. Navigating an extraordinary range of subject and tone, Wideman challenges the boundaries of traditional forms, and delivers unforgettable, immersive narratives that touch the very core of what it means to be alive. An extended meditation on family, history, and loss, American Histories weaves together historical fact, philosophical wisdom, and deeply personal vignettes. More than the sum of its parts, this is Wideman at his best - emotionally precise and intellectually stimulating - an extraordinary collection by a master.
©2018 John Edgar Wideman (P)2018 Novel Audio Inc.
Fanon
Summary
Frantz Fanon (1925 - 1961) fought to free Algeria from French rule and rallied against the oppressive grip of colonialism. In this fictionalized view of the revolutionary's life, an African-American writer travels the world to do research for a biography of Fanon. In a tale that is part love story, mystery, and biography, Fanon examines how a political radical's views apply in a post-9/11 world.
©2008 John Edgar Wideman (P)2008 Recorded Books, LLC
Writing to Save a Life
Summary
A major literary figure tells “a searching tale of loss, recovery, and déja vu that is part memoir and what-if speculation, part polemic and exposé” (The Washington Post) about two generations of one family - civil rights martyr Emmett Till and his father, Louis - shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Emmett Till took a train from his home in Chicago to visit family in Money, Mississippi; a few weeks later he returned home dead. Murdered because he was a colored boy and had, allegedly, whistled at a White woman. His mother, Mamie Till, chose to display her son’s brutalized face in a glass-topped casket, “so the world can see what they did to my baby.” Emmett Till’s murder and his mother’s refusal to allow his story to be forgotten have become American legends. But one darkly significant twist in the Till legend is rarely mentioned: Louis Till, Emmett’s father, Mamie’s husband, a soldier during World War II, was executed in Italy for committing rape and murder. In 1955, when he and Emmett were each only 14 years old, Wideman saw a horrific photograph of dead Emmett’s battered face. Decades later, upon discovering that Louis Till had been court-martialed and hanged, he was impelled to investigate the tragically intertwined fates of father and son. Writing to Save a Life is “part exploration and part meditation, a searching account of [Wideman’s] attempt to learn more about the short life of Louis Till” (The New York Times Book Review) and shine light on the truths that have remained in darkness. Wideman, the author of the award-winning Brothers and Keepers, “is a master of quiet meditation...and his book is remarkable for its insight and power” (SFGate). An amalgam of research, memoir, and imagination, Writing to Save a Life is essential and “impressive” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) listening - an engaging, enlightening conversation between generations, the living and the dead, fathers and sons.
©2016 John Edgar Wideman (P)2016 Simon & Schuster Audio