BRIEFS is a groundbreaking new collection of “microstories” from celebrated author John Edgar Wideman, previous winner of both the Rea and O. Henry awards saluting mastery of the short story form. Here he has assembled a masterful collage that explodes our assumptions about the genre. Wideman unveils an utterly original voice and structure—hip-hop zen—where each story is a single breath, to be caught, held, shared and savored. A relief worker’s Sudan bulletin, a jogger’s bullet-dodging daydreams, your neighbor’s fears and fantasies, an absent mother’s regrets— Wideman’s storytellers are eavesdroppers and peeping Toms, diarists and haiku historians.
The characters and compass points range from Darfur to Manhattan, from Pittsburgh to Paris, but the true coordinates these stories chart are the psychic and emotional fault lines beneath our common ground. BRIEFS is an unforgettable map of the lives we inherit, those we invent, and the worlds we wander between first and last loves.
Available exclusively on Lulu
About the Author
John Edgar Wideman is the author of more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including the award-winning Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire, and most recently the novel Fanon. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Genius grant, two PEN/Faulkner awards, and has been nominated for the National Book Award. Wideman lives in Manhattan and teaches at Brown University.
Other books available by this author
Praise for John Edgar Wideman
“Wideman’s writing, like Toni Morrison’s, is so pure and convincing that he can break the rules of classical storytelling, even invent some new ones.”
- BOSTON GLOBE
“Wideman’s short stories read like transcripts of slam poetry, each powerful run-on sentence gathering steam so it seems to end in an exclamation point instead of a period.”
- ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
“There is a very obvious reason why John Edgar Wideman is one of America’s most celebrated authors: he is very good.”
- WASHINGTON POST
