:John Edgar Wideman

Wideman was born on June 14, 1941, in Washington, D.C., the oldest of five children of Edgar (1918–2001) and Bette (née French; 1921–2008) Wideman.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman, Keith|publisher=Praeger|year=2013|isbn=9780313366338|location=Santa Barbara|pages=2|oclc=867141160}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.fold3.com/search?general.title.id=848:Veterans%20Affairs%20BIRLS%20Death%20File&keywords=Edgar%20Wideman|title=Veterans Affairs record: Edgar Wideman|website=Fold3|language=en-US|access-date=2019-05-11}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/postgazette/obituary.aspx?n=bette-a-wideman&pid=102981208|title=Bette A. Wideman obituary|website=legacy.com}}

Wideman traces his roots to the period of American slavery. On his mother's side, his great-great-great-grandmother was a slave from Maryland who had children with her master's son. Together, they relocated to Pittsburgh either during or immediately after the American Civil War. According to Wideman family lore, this ancestor first settled the area that eventually became the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Homewood, despite the fact that a white lawyer and politician, William Wilkins, is credited with founding the community.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman, Keith|pages=1}} On Wideman's father's side, his ancestors have been traced to rural South Carolina, where records indicate there were both white and African-American Widemans, including one who owned slaves.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|pages=2}} Wideman's paternal grandfather moved to Pittsburgh as part of the Great Migration of the early 20th century, when many African Americans fled Southern states.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|pages=3}}

Wideman's father, Edgar, graduated high school in Pittsburgh, where he was an avid basketball player. After marrying Wideman's mother, Bette, he moved with her to Washington, D.C., for a job in the U.S. Government Printing Office. The couple moved back to Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood after Wideman was born in 1941. During World War II, Wideman's father enlisted in the U.S. Army and was stationed in Charleston, South Carolina, and on Saipan. After the War, he worked several jobs simultaneously, including as a waiter and sanitation worker, in order to support the family. Wideman's youngest brother, Robert, was born in 1951 while the family was living in Homewood.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|page=17}} With the support of Edgar's earnings, the family was able to move to Shadyside, a predominantly white neighborhood, allowing Wideman to attend Peabody High School.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|page=4}}

Wideman's teachers had noted his intelligence from an early age, and he proved to be an outstanding student. In high school, he was a star basketball player, president of the student body, and valedictorian of his class.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|page=5}} However, Wideman was socially cautious, especially around white students. Interviewed for an article in 1963, one of his white classmates recalled Wideman telling her that "he wouldn't want to be seen on the street alone with a white girl" and that "when class breaks came, he would seldom walk to the next class with the white students".{{Cite journal|last=Shalit, Gene|date=May 21, 1963|title=The Astonishing John Wideman|journal=Look|volume=27|issue=10|pages=36}}

File:John Edgar Wideman LOOK Magazine 1963.jpg in 1963|alt=]]

Wideman attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was offered a Benjamin Franklin Scholarship for academic merit and was one of a small number of African Americans to enroll in 1959.{{Efn|Byerman claims 10 African Americans enrolled at Penn in 1959, a number Wideman uses in his memoir, Brothers and Keepers.{{Cite book|title=Brothers and Keepers|last=Wideman, John Edgar|pages=29}} A website published by Penn's University Archives and Records Center claims there were only six African-American enrollees in 1959, out of a class of more than 1,700.{{Cite web|url=https://archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-history/wideman-1963/adjusting|title=1963 City Champions|website=University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania|language=en-US|access-date=2019-05-10}}|name=|group=lower-greek}} In his memoir, Brothers and Keepers, he described a heated freshman-year encounter with a white student in the dorm room of an African-American friend: the white student claimed to know more about blues music than Wideman did, and his friend refused to offer support. According to Wideman, the encounter left him feeling that he had "no place to hide",{{Cite book|title=Brothers and Keepers|last=Wideman, John Edgar|publisher=Mariner Books|year=2005|isbn=978-0618509638|location=New York|pages=30}} and he was in an environment "that continually set me against them and against myself".{{Cite book|title=Brothers and Keepers|last=Wideman, John Edgar|pages=31}} Feeling alienated, he decided to quit college, but was stopped by his basketball coach at a bus station, where Wideman was about to board a bus back to Pittsburgh.{{Cite web|url=http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/about/news/jewideman.php|title=Wideman on Campus|website=writing.upenn.edu|access-date=2019-05-10}}

Addressing his brother in Brothers and Keepers, he summarized his motivation:{{blockquote|I was running away from Pittsburgh, from poverty, from blackness. To get ahead, to make something of myself, college had seemed a logical, necessary step; my exile, my flight from home began with good grades, with good English, with setting myself apart long before I'd earned a scholarship and a train ticket over the mountains to Philadelphia... if I ever had any hesitations or reconsiderations about the path I'd chosen, youall were back home in the ghetto to remind me how lucky I was.{{Cite book|title=Brothers and Keepers|last=Wideman, John Edgar|pages=27}}}}Once again, Wideman excelled academically and in athletics, becoming a star basketball player. By his senior year, he was captain of the basketball team, which he led in scoring, and was named to the "All Ivy League" team.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|pages=6}} While his team lost the Ivy League championship to Princeton University his senior year, they won the "Big 5" tournament, which has traditionally determined the best college basketball team in Philadelphia, pitting Penn against Villanova, Saint Joseph's, La Salle, and Temple universities.{{Cite web|url=https://archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-history/wideman-1963/city-champions|title=1963 City Champions|website=University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania|language=en-US|access-date=2019-05-10}} For his academic achievements, which included winning campus-wide awards for both creative and scholarly writing, Wideman was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa national honor society.{{Cite web|url=https://archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-history/wideman-1963/ivy-league-ideal|title=Ivy League Ideal|website=University Archives and Records Center, University of Pennsylvania|language=en-US|access-date=2019-05-10}}

In 1963, before graduating with a bachelor's degree in English, Wideman was named a Rhodes Scholar, becoming the second African American to win the prestigious award from the University of Oxford.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|pages=7}}{{Efn|Wideman shared this distinction with another African-American student, J. Stanley Sanders of the University of Southern California, who was also named a Rhodes Scholar in 1963.|name=|group=lower-greek}} The achievement brought him national attention: he was profiled in Look that spring, in an article entitled "The Astonishing John Wideman". It described Wideman as having been "showered with so many academic and athletic honors, awards and 'firsts' that he is unable to enumerate them. He sometimes forgets that he won a prize that another student would consider the high point of a college career".{{Cite journal|last=Shalit, Gene|date=May 21, 1963|title=The Astonishing John Wideman|journal=Look|volume=27|issue=10|pages=33}}

In the fall of 1963, Wideman moved to England to begin his studies at Oxford, where he pursued a thesis on 18th-century British fiction. He also continued to play basketball and was captain of the Oxford University men's basketball team, where one of his teammates was fellow Rhodes Scholar, and future NBA All-Star and United States Senator, Bill Bradley. The two had played against each other as undergraduates, when Bradley was at Princeton. At Oxford, their team won the 1965 B.U.S.F. National Championship and the 1966 A.B.B.A. National Championship.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|pages=8}}{{Cite book|last=Schaeper, Thomas J.|first=Schaeper, Kathleen|title=Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite|publisher=Berghahn Books|year=2010|isbn=978-0-85745-369-3|location=New York|pages=234|oclc=873806268}}

In 1965, Wideman married Judith Goldman, a white Jewish woman from Long Island whom he began dating when both were undergraduates at Penn. The following year, Wideman received a BPhil degree from Oxford and returned to the U.S. He spent the 1966–67 academic year at the Iowa Writers Workshop, where he studied under Kurt Vonnegut and José Donoso.

In 1967, Wideman accepted a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|pages=9}} That summer, his first novel, A Glance Away, was published. Wideman's editor, Hiram Haydn, had seen his profile in Look and contacted Wideman before he left for Oxford, asking the aspiring author to send him his writing. While Wideman was at Oxford, Haydn read the unfinished manuscript of A Glance Away and agreed to publish it.{{Cite web|url=http://kalamu.posthaven.com/interview-john-edgar-wideman-the-art-of-ficti|title=INTERVIEW: John Edgar Wideman - The Art of Fiction No. 171 > Paris Review|website=NEO•GRIOT|access-date=2019-05-10}} The novel garnered positive reviews. A reviewer in The New York Times Book Review described Wideman as "a novelist of high seriousness and depth" who had written "a powerfully inventive" debut.{{Cite web|url=http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/10/04/specials/wideman-glance.html|title=Junkie's Homecoming|website=movies2.nytimes.com|access-date=2019-05-10}}

Responding to student demand, Wideman offered Penn's first classes in African-American literature in 1968. In the same year, his first son, Daniel, was born. Wideman also became an assistant coach for the varsity men's basketball team for which he had played as a student.{{Cite web|url=https://sites.psu.edu/pablackwriters/the-writers/john-edgar-wideman/|title=John Edgar Wideman|website=sites.psu.edu|access-date=2019-05-10|archive-date=May 4, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190504225103/http://sites.psu.edu/pablackwriters/the-writers/john-edgar-wideman/|url-status=dead}}

In 1970, Wideman's second son, Jacob, was born. In the same year, his second novel, Hurry Home, was published. A reviewer for The New York Times admired the novel's "dazzling display" of "Joycean" prose and Wideman's "formidable command of the techniques of fiction".{{Cite web|url=http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/10/04/specials/wideman-home.html|title=Cecil Could Run -- But He Couldn't Hide|website=movies2.nytimes.com|date=April 19, 1970|access-date=2019-05-10}}

Wideman's initial courses in African-American literature grew into a program in African American Studies, which Wideman helped to establish. From 1971 to 1973, he served as director of the program. In 1972, he stepped down as an assistant basketball coach.

In 1973, Wideman's third novel, The Lynchers, was published. Examining violent strains of black nationalist ideology that had emerged during the 1960s, the novel depicts African-American characters who plan to lynch a white police officer. Writing in The New York Times, Anatole Broyard claimed that Wideman "can make an ordinary scene sing the blues like nobody's business", although he found the novel to be flawed.{{Cite web|url=http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/10/04/specials/wideman-lynchings.html|title=A Lynching in Black Face|website=movies2.nytimes.com|access-date=2019-05-10}}

In 1974, Wideman was promoted to a full professorship of English at Penn, and he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to pursue research in African-American literature.{{Cite web|url=https://securegrants.neh.gov/publicquery/main.aspx?q=1&a=0&n=1&ln=Wideman&fn=John&o=0&ot=0&k=0&f=0&s=0&cd=0&p=0&d=0&y=0&prd=0&cov=0&prz=0&wp=0&ob=year&or=DESC|title=John Wideman NEH Grant|website=securegrants.neh.gov|access-date=2019-05-10}} However, he had already begun to look for a reprieve from his duties at the institution, as well as life in Philadelphia, in order to focus on his writing and raising a family. Having previously visited the University of Wyoming, he accepted an offer to join its faculty.

Wideman joined the faculty of the University of Wyoming in 1975. That same year, Wideman's daughter, Jamila, was born. The circumstances of her birth were traumatic, as a complication caused Wideman's wife, Judith, to be transported by ambulance from Laramie, Wyoming, to Denver, Colorado, where Jamila was born two months premature.{{Cite book|title=Brothers and Keepers|last=Wideman, John Edgar|page=16}}

File:19680526 19 PAT M454 1636 1646 Hamilton Ave. @ Homewood Ave. (3293486527).jpg, Pittsburgh, 1960s]]

After the family returned to Laramie, Wideman learned that his brother Robert, with whom he had grown up in Homewood, was a fugitive. During the 1960s and early 1970s, the neighborhood was in a state of decline—it has frequently been described as a ghetto. Robert began to use drugs, a habit which he supported via petty crime. In November 1975, along with two accomplices, he participated in a robbery scheme that went awry when the intended victim, a fence named Nicola Morena, fled. One of Robert's accomplices shot Morena as he ran. A short time later, a passerby encountered the wounded man and called for an ambulance. Morena was taken to the nearest hospital, which did not have the surgeon necessary to treat his wound, and after a period of waiting, he was transported to another hospital, where he died. The victim's family later filed a lawsuit against the city of Pittsburgh, the hospitals and doctors involved, and the ambulance drivers, claiming negligence. That suit was not successful, although the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania acknowledged that a delay in Morena's treatment was "a contributing factor in causing his death".{{Cite web|url=https://law.justia.com/cases/pennsylvania/supreme-court/1983/501-pa-634-1.html|title=Morena v. South Hills Health System|website=Justia Law|language=en|access-date=2019-05-10}} The family ultimately settled a malpractice lawsuit against the hospital system.{{Cite web|url=https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2019/05/30/robert-wideman-clemency-felony-murder-pittsburgh-john-edgar-wideman-morena-manning-zappala/stories/201905300140|title=Pa. pardons board votes 5-0 to grant clemency to Robert Wideman in 1975 murder|website=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|language=en|date=May 30, 2019|access-date=2019-05-31}}

Robert and his accomplices fled Pittsburgh and arrived in Laramie, where Wideman let them spend a night in his house, an act he has attributed to naïveté. Robert and his accomplices then drove to Colorado, where they were apprehended. Afterward, police in Wyoming accused Wideman of aiding a fugitive, but no charges were filed.{{Cite book|title=Brothers and Keepers|last=Wideman, John Edgar|page=14}}

According to Pennsylvania law, because the attempted armed robbery of Morena resulted in a homicide, the charge against the shooter was second-degree murder, and because Robert was an accomplice, he faced the same charge as the shooter. At trial, Robert was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. All of his appeals failed.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|page=18}}

Wideman incorporated his brother's experience into his work. After an eight-year publication hiatus, he published two books simultaneously: a story collection, Damballah, and a novel, Hiding Place, both of which appeared in 1981 and allude to the events that resulted in Robert's imprisonment. He followed these books with another novel, Sent for You Yesterday, in 1983. Because these books share characters and a setting in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Homewood, they are frequently referred to as the "Homewood trilogy".

The trilogy was celebrated upon publication, inspiring a claim in The New York Times that Wideman was "one of America's premier writers of fiction".{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/04/specials/wideman.html |title=Books {{!}} Featured Author: John Edgar Wideman|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date= October 17, 2011}} For many critics and scholars, the trilogy represents Wideman's artistic breakthrough, with some even considering it his greatest literary achievement.{{Cite book|title=Understanding John Edgar Wideman|last=Miller, D. Quentin|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|year=2018|isbn=9781611178241|location=Columbia|oclc=985079951}} Surveying Wideman's career in The Nation in 2016, the critic Jesse McCarthy claimed that the trilogy shows Wideman "achieving a distinctive voice that is more confident and vernacular than in his early work".{{Cite news|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/widemans-ghosts/|title=Wideman's Ghosts|last=McCarthy|first=Jesse|journal=The Nation: A Weekly Journal Devoted to Politics, Literature, Science, Drama, Music, Art, and Finance|date=2016-11-29|access-date=2019-05-10|language=en-US|issn=0027-8378|archive-date=April 15, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190415153813/https://www.thenation.com/article/widemans-ghosts/|url-status=dead}} Some of the stories in Damballah have been widely anthologized.{{Cite web|title=The Beginning of Homewood {{!}} Encyclopedia.com|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/beginning-homewood|access-date=2020-11-15|website=www.encyclopedia.com|quote="'The Beginning of Homewood' has emerged as the most anthologized of all the stories in the volume."}}

In 1984, Wideman followed the successful Homewood trilogy with what has been called his most popular book, Brothers and Keepers. Wideman's first memoir delves into his brother Robert's story. Stylistically, the book is distinctive for its use of multiple voices, alternating between Wideman and his brother. It is also notable for its exploration of the realities of the American criminal justice system and life in prison, particularly for African Americans. Ishmael Reed, reviewing the book in The New York Times, called it "a rare triumph".{{Cite web|url=http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/wideman-brothers.html|title=Of One Blood, Two Men|website=movies2.nytimes.com|access-date=2019-05-10}} Writing in The New York Review of Books in 1997, Joyce Carol Oates claimed that it belongs among the "masterpieces of American memoir".{{Cite news|last=Oates|first=Joyce Carol|date=March 27, 1997|title=Troubles I've Seen|language=en|work=The New York Review of Books|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/03/27/troubles-ive-seen/|access-date=2020-11-22|issn=0028-7504}}

In 1986, Wideman joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where the prominent author James Baldwin was a visiting member of the faculty.{{Cite web|url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/09/25/BALDWIN-TEACHES/5666464932800/|title=BALDWIN TEACHES|first=Joan|last=Hanauer|website=UPI|language=en|date=September 25, 1984|access-date=2019-05-10}} Wideman taught in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers.

In the same year, Wideman's son, Jacob, who was sixteen years old, stabbed a roommate, Eric Kane, to death during a youth camping trip in Arizona. He then fled the state. At his parents' urging, he surrendered to law enforcement, and after being released into parental custody, underwent psychiatric evaluation in Massachusetts. During his stay in a psychiatric facility, he called police in Arizona and confessed his guilt. However, before a judge, he pleaded not guilty, and his case was scheduled for trial.{{Cite web|url=https://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2011/05/13/Children-of-promise-children-of-pain-The-Jacob-Wideman-case/stories/201105130235|title=Children of promise, children of pain: The Jacob Wideman case|website=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|language=en|first=Sally|last=Kalson|date=May 12, 2011|access-date=2019-05-10}} A plea bargain was then struck, in which Jacob pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison, with a possibility of parole after 25 years.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/16/us/writer-s-son-given-life-term-in-death-of-new-york-youth.html|title=Writer's son given life term in death of New York youth|date=October 16, 1988|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=May 10, 2019}} A year after the murder, Wideman wrote a letter to the Kane family, forgiving them for wanting the death penalty for Jacob, and they responded angrily.{{Cite web |last=Schwartzapfel |first=Beth |date=2023-03-29 |title='Bad seed': Two generations, two terrible crimes |url=https://www.wbur.org/violation/2023/03/29/bad-seed-murder-confession-john-edgar-wideman-brothers-and-keepers |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=www.wbur.org |language=en}}

Wideman then entered what is, to date, the most prolific period of his career. A novel written before Jacob's crime, entitled Reuben, appeared in 1987. This was followed by a collection of stories, entitled Fever (1989). The following year saw the publication of the novel Philadelphia Fire, which garnered both critical acclaim and literary awards. Inspired by the police's 1985 bombing of the Philadelphia headquarters of the black liberation group known as MOVE—an act that resulted in the death of five children and the loss of two city blocks{{Cite news|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820/why-did-we-forget-the-move-bombing|title=Why Have So Many People Never Heard Of The MOVE Bombing?|newspaper=NPR|date=May 18, 2015|language=en|access-date=2019-05-10|last1=Demby|first1=Gene}}—the "intense, poetic narrative"{{Cite book|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-edgar-wideman/philadelphia-fire/|title=PHILADELPHIA FIRE by John Edgar Wideman {{!}} Kirkus Reviews|language=en}} centers on one man's attempt to find, and write about, a child rumored to have survived the tragedy.

Philadelphia Fire was followed by a story collection, The Stories of John Edgar Wideman (later re-issued as All Stories Are True) in 1992; a memoir, Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers and Sons, Race and Society (1994), and two more novels, The Cattle Killing (1996) and Two Cities (1998). Notably, while Wideman wrote about his son's story in some of these books (for example, in Philadelphia Fire{{Cite book|title=Philadelphia Fire|last=Wideman, John Edgar|publisher=Henry Holt and Company|year=1990|location=New York|pages=97–151}} and in Fatheralong{{Cite book|title=Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers and Sons, Race and Society|last=Wideman, John Edgar|publisher=Pantheon Books|year=1994|location=New York|pages=177–197}}) he has not written a memoir about it. In interviews, he has frequently declined to discuss the case.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/magazine/john-edgar-wideman-against-the-world.html|title=John Edgar Wideman Against the World|last=Williams|first=Thomas Chatterton|date=2017-01-26|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-05-10|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}

During this period, Wideman was in demand as "one of America's most distinguished writers".{{Cite web|url=https://www.si.com/vault/1997/03/17/224226/out-of-the-shadows-like-her-father-the-distinguished-writer-john-edgar-wideman-stanford-point-guard-jamila-wideman-has-had-to-confront-a-dark-family-legacy-while-attracting-the-limelight-with-her-surpassing-gift|title=Jamila Wideman has had to confront a dark family legacy|first=Gary|last=Smith|website=si.com|language=en|date=March 17, 1997|access-date=2019-05-10}} He edited anthologies, provided introductions for books, and appeared in various media, including television, to comment on societal issues, particularly those affecting African Americans. Additionally, his daughter, Jamila, became a star basketball player and, in 1997, the third overall pick in the inaugural draft of the Women's National Basketball Association,{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-04-29-sp-53581-story.html|title=Trojans Drafted 1-2; Sparks Take Wideman|first= Earl|last=Gustkey|date=1997-04-29|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=2019-05-10|language=en-US|issn=0458-3035}} bringing further media attention, including a cover story in Sports Illustrated magazine.

In 2000, Wideman and his wife, Judith, divorced.{{Cite book|title=The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman|last=Byerman|page=vii}}

In 2001, the University of Massachusetts appointed Wideman a Distinguished Professor;{{cite web |title=John Edgar Wideman Appointed Distinguished Professor |url=https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/john-edgar-wideman-appointed-distinguished-professor-umass-board-trustees |website=umass.edu |publisher=University of Massachusetts |access-date=26 March 2019 |date=February 7, 2001 |archive-date=March 26, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326143907/https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/john-edgar-wideman-appointed-distinguished-professor-umass-board-trustees |url-status=dead }} it was the same year that another memoir, Hoop Roots, appeared, focusing on Wideman's experience as a player and fan of basketball. A review in Bookpage hailed it as "one of the best books ever written about the sport".{{Cite web|url=https://bookpage.com/reviews/2148-john-edgar-wideman-hoop-roots-biography-memoir|title=Hoop Roots by John Edgar Wideman - Review {{!}} BookPage|website=BookPage.com|date=March 29, 2011 |language=en|access-date=2019-05-10}} It was followed by a nonfiction book on Martinique entitled The Island: Martinique (2003).

In 2004, Wideman was appointed Asa Messer Professor and Professor of Africana Studies and Literary Arts at Brown University.{{cite web |title=Eighteen Brown Faculty Members Appointed to Named Professorships |url=http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2004-05/04-053.html |website=brown.edu |publisher=Brown University |access-date=26 March 2019 |date=November 10, 2004}} In the same year, he married French journalist Catherine Nedonchelle.{{Cite web|url=https://aaregistry.org/story/john-edgar-wideman-his-words-do-apply/|title=John Edgar Wideman, his words "Do Apply"|website=African American Registry|language=en|access-date=2019-05-10}}

The following year, his story collection, God's Gym, was published. This was followed by his first novel in a decade, and tenth overall, Fanon, which appeared in 2008. In 2010, a collection of flash fiction, entitled Briefs, was published, inspiring a theatrical adaptation that premiered in Los Angeles in 2018.{{Cite web|url=https://wordtheatre.com/event/witness-the-john-edgar-wideman-experience/|title=Witness: The John Edgar Wideman Experience|last=Theatre|first=Word|website=WordTheatre {{!}} Giving Voice to Great Writing|language=en-US|access-date=2019-05-10}}

In 2014, after a decade at Brown University, and nearly 50 years in academia, Wideman became an emeritus professor. He has since published a hybrid work of fiction and nonfiction that explores the life of Louis Till, the father of Emmett Till, entitled Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File (2016). He published a collection of stories, American Histories, in 2018. In 2021, a selection of his short fiction, produced over four decades, was published as You Made Me Love You: Selected Stories, 1981-2018. Publishers Weekly proclaimed the collection "a stunning showcase" that confirms Wideman's place in American literature.{{cite web |last1=Publishers Weekly |title=Review of You Made Me Love You: Selected Stories 1981-2018 |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-9821-4891-1 |website=publishersweekly.com |date=February 11, 2021|access-date=6 April 2021}}

Wideman was married to Judith Ann Goldman (1943-2023), an attorney, from 1965 until their divorce in 2000. The couple had three children together: Daniel Wideman is a poet, playwright, and essayist, as well as a business executive;{{Cite web|url=http://www.calabashfestival.org/pages/artists/artists_page/dan_wideman.html|title=Artists: Daniel Wideman|website=www.calabashfestival.org|access-date=2019-07-18}}{{Cite web|url=https://medium.com/@djwideman|title=Daniel Wideman|website=Medium|language=en|access-date=2019-07-18}} Jacob Wideman was convicted of a murder committed while he was a minor and sentenced to life in prison in Arizona,{{cite web|url=https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-investigations/2019/01/02/released-arizona-killer-jacob-wideman-appeals-reimprisonment/2422528002/|title=Released Arizona Killer Jacob Wideman Appeals Reimprisonment|last1=Kiefer|first1=Michael|date=January 2, 2019|website=azcentral.com|publisher=Arizona Republic|access-date=26 March 2019}} and Jamila Wideman is a lawyer and executive at the National Basketball Association, having played professional basketball in the Women's National Basketball Association and the Israeli League.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/12/sports/perspective-changing-courts-brother-s-incarceration-shapes-player-s-goals.html|title=Perspective; Changing Courts: Brother's Incarceration Shapes Player's Goals|last=Lee|first=Laura|date=2001-08-12|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-12-11|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}{{cite web|url=https://www.hoopfeed.com/content/2018/09/06/former-wnba-player-jamila-wideman-joins-nbas-player-development-department/|title=Former WNBA Player Jamila Wideman Joins NBA's Player Development Department|first=Cheryl|last=Coward|date=September 6, 2018|website=hoopfeed.com|access-date=26 March 2019}}

In 2004, Wideman married French journalist Catherine Nedonchelle. He resides in France and on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City.

Wideman's brother, Robert, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his role in a 1975 murder. After more than 40 years in prison, his sentence was commuted and he was released on July 2, 2019.{{Cite web|url=https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2019/07/02/Gov-Tom-Wolf-Pennsylvania-commutes-murder-sentence-Robert-Wideman-Allegheny-County/stories/201907020086|title=Gov. Wolf commutes sentence for Allegheny County man convicted in 1975 murder|last=Navratil|first=Liz|date=July 2, 2019|website=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|language=en|access-date=2019-07-18}}

{{External media

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|video1 = In this [https://charlierose.com/videos/16714 video] from 1994, John Edgar Wideman appears on The Charlie Rose Show to discuss his work. (22 mins)}}Wideman's work has been, and continues to be, the focus of academic study. The John Edgar Wideman Society was formed to promote scholarship and awareness of his work. Affiliated with the American Literature Association, it held its first international conference in 2003.{{Cite web|title=Membership Information - John Edgar Wideman Literary Society|url=http://webspace.ship.edu/rejani/conf/proposals.html|access-date=2019-05-10|website=webspace.ship.edu|archive-date=February 6, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070206222051/http://webspace.ship.edu/rejani/conf/proposals.html|url-status=dead}} Wideman's papers, including manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials, are housed at the Houghton Library at Harvard University.{{Cite web|title=John Edgar Wideman Papers|url=https://hollis.harvard.edu/primo-explore/fulldisplay?context=L&vid=HVD2&search_scope=everything&tab=everything&lang=en_US&docid=01HVD_ALMA212046077930003941|access-date=2019-05-10|website=hollis.harvard.edu}}

Wideman's writing is known for its complexity, with critics describing it as cerebral and experimental. It is also known for combining traditional English diction with African-American Vernacular English. In some works, Wideman's writing relies on sentence fragments, whereas elsewhere, he has written a single sentence that spans several pages. He has sometimes used the stream-of-consciousness technique and sudden, unannounced shifts in perspective. In much of his writing, Wideman eschews punctuation such as question marks or quotation marks, relying instead on context to identify speakers or discern questions from statements. In some cases, Wideman mixes nonfiction and fiction in the same work.

Among scholars, there has been discussion as to whether Wideman is a modernist or a postmodernist writer.{{Cite journal|last=Ramsey|first=Priscilla R.|date=1997|journal=CLA Journal|volume=41|issue=1|pages=1–23|issn=0007-8549|jstor=44323037|title=John Edgar Wideman's First Fiction: Voice and the Modernist Narrative}}{{Cite journal|last1=Wideman|first1=John Edgar|last2=Hoem|first2=Sheri I.|date=2000|title="Shifting Spirits": Ancestral Constructs in the Postmodern Writing of John Edgar Wideman|journal=African American Review|volume=34|issue=2|pages=249–262|doi=10.2307/2901252|issn=1062-4783|jstor=2901252}} The scholar D. Quentin Miller, however, argues that Wideman's works "resist categorization".

While Wideman's work is thematically diverse, some common themes emerge. Most prominently, Wideman is known for his exploration of race, a subject that factors in all of his books. His fiction depicts African-American characters dealing with the challenges and alienation of life in a predominantly white society. His work also depicts the ways that race and racism are constructed by, and manifested in, society—from language to interpersonal relationships to interactions with the state.{{Cite book|title=Critical Essays on John Edgar Wideman|last=Russell|first=Heather|date=2006|publisher=The University of Tennessee Press|isbn=978-1572334694|editor-last=TuSmith|editor-first= Bonnie|pages=[https://archive.org/details/criticalessayson0000unse_a3f3/page/46 46]|chapter=Race, Representation, and Intersubjectivity in the Works of John Edgar Wideman|oclc=470064569|editor-last2=Byerman, Keith|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/criticalessayson0000unse_a3f3/page/46}}

Another chief concern of Wideman's writing is family, particularly as the key unit of community and cultural survival. Yet family, for Wideman, is inherently contentious: his writing investigates the ways that family is necessary for protection and individual development, while at the same time proving to be something one needs to be protected from in order to find one's true self.{{Cite book|title=Critical Essays on John Edgar Wideman|last=Page, Eugene Philip|date=2006|publisher=The University of Tennessee Press|editor-last=TuSmith, Bonnie|pages=4|chapter="Familiar Strangers": The Quest for Connection and Self-Knowledge in Brothers and Keepers|editor-last2=Byerman, Keith}} This exploration is explicit in Brothers and Keepers, in which Wideman and his brother navigate the complexities of their familial relationship.

Another of Wideman's frequent themes is storytelling. Of particular importance is the notion that "all stories are true", which Wideman has used in multiple works, including as the title for one of his story collections. The scholar Heather Russell explains that, in focusing on this concept, Wideman's writing "reflects African American traditions of storytelling within which myth, history, parable, parody, folklore, fact, and fiction exist in synergy. Storytelling functions as a bridge between both past, present, and future and between history, memory, and the imagination".{{Cite book|title=Critical Essays on John Edgar Wideman|last=Russell|date=2006|editor-last=TuSmith|page=51|chapter=Race, Representation, and Intersubjectivity in the Works of John Edgar Wideman|editor-last2=Byerman}}

Frequently in Wideman's work, storytelling is focused on trauma—expressing it, escaping it, or healing from it. Trauma, in Wideman's work, can exist on the level of the individual and for all of society. The scholar Tracie Church Guzzio summarizes Wideman's approach to trauma when she claims that his writing "illustrates that the trauma suffered by African Americans in the period of slavery in America is re-lived and re-experienced in the continuing racism confronting African Americans in their daily lives as well as in the images projected by history, literature, and popular culture".{{Cite book|title=All Stories Are True: History, Myth and Trauma in the Work of John Edgar Wideman.|last=Guzzio, Tracie Church.|date=2013|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1617038334|location=Jackson|page=12|oclc=925995917}}

In interviews, Wideman has typically declined to identify his influences. However, scholars and critics have pointed to figures that, judging from Wideman's work and interviews, appear to be literary or intellectual influences. These include W. E. B. Du Bois (to whom Wideman has dedicated work), Frantz Fanon (inspiration for Wideman's novel, Fanon), Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and, especially in his early work, the modernist writers James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and William Faulkner.

• A Glance Away (Harcourt, 1967) {{ISBN|978-0557314775}}
• Hurry Home (Harcourt, 1970) {{ISBN|978-0557314829}}
• The Lynchers (Harcourt, 1973) {{ISBN|978-0557314836}}
• Hiding Place (Avon Books, 1981) {{ISBN|978-0395897980}}
• Sent for You Yesterday (Avon Books, 1983) {{ISBN|978-0395877296}}
• Reuben (Henry Holt, 1987) {{ISBN|978-2070732340}}
• Philadelphia Fire (Henry Holt, 1990) {{ISBN|978-0618509645}}
• The Cattle Killing (Houghton Mifflin, 1996) {{ISBN|978-0395877500}}
• Two Cities (Houghton Mifflin, 1998) {{ISBN|978-0618001859}}
• Fanon (Houghton Mifflin, 2008) {{ISBN|978-0547086163}}

• The Homewood Trilogy (Avon Books, 1985) {{ISBN|978-0380895649}}
• The Homewood Books (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992) {{ISBN|978-0822938316}}
• Identities: Three Early Novels by John Edgar Wideman (Henry Holt, 1994) {{ISBN|978-0805035926}}

• Damballah (Avon Books, 1981) {{ISBN|978-0395897973}}
• Fever (Henry Holt, 1989) {{ISBN|978-0805011845}}
• The Stories of John Edgar Wideman (Pantheon Books, 1992; published as All Stories Are True, Vintage Books, 1993) {{ISBN|978-0679407195}}
• God's Gym (Houghton Mifflin, 2005) {{ISBN|978-0618711994}}
• Briefs (Lulu Press, 2010) {{ISBN|978-0557310043}}
• American Histories (Scribner, 2018) {{ISBN|978-1501178351}}
• You Made Me Love You: Selected Stories, 1981-2018 (Scribner, 2021) {{ISBN|978-1982148911}}
• Look for Me and I'll Be Gone (Scribner, 2021) {{ISBN|978-1982148942}}

• Brothers and Keepers (Henry Holt, 1984) {{ISBN|978-0618509638}}
• Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers and Sons, Race and Society (Pantheon, 1994) {{ISBN|978-0679407201}}
• Hoop Roots: Basketball, Race, and Love (Houghton Mifflin, 2001) {{ISBN|978-0395857311}}
• (Editor) My Soul Has Grown Deep: Classics of Early African-American Literature (Running Press, 2001) {{ISBN|978-0762410354}}
• (Editor) 20: The Best of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001) {{ISBN|978-0822941705}}
• The Island: Martinique (National Geographic Directions, 2003) {{ISBN|978-0792265337}}
• Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File (Scribner, 2016) {{ISBN|978-1501147296}}
• Slaveroad (Scribner, 2024) {{ISBN|978-1668057216}}

• Philadelphia Big 5 Hall of Fame, inducted 1974{{Cite web|title=Philadelphia Big 5 {{!}} Hall of Fame|url=https://philadelphiabig5.org/hallfame/index.html|access-date=2019-05-10|website=philadelphiabig5.org}}
• University of Pennsylvania Athletics Hall of Fame, inducted 1998{{Cite web|title=Penn Athletics Hall of Fame|url=https://pennathletics.com/sports/2016/6/24/_131485207640405998.aspx|access-date=2019-05-10|website=University of Pennsylvania Athletics|language=en}}

In 1993, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in awarding him a fellowship, noted that Wideman "has contributed to a new humanist perspective in American literature, distilling personality and history, crime and mysticism, art and the exigencies of material life into his work."{{cite web|title=John Edgar Wideman MacArthur Fellowship Citation|url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/178/|access-date=March 26, 2019|website=macfound.org|publisher=John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation}} Honors bestowed for his entire body of work include:

• Honorary Doctorate, University of Pennsylvania (1986){{Cite web|title=Honorary Degree Recipients {{!}} Penn Secretary|url=https://secretary.upenn.edu/ceremonies/honorary-degree-recipients/alphabetical/w|access-date=2019-05-10|website=secretary.upenn.edu|language=en|archive-date=June 12, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190612121601/https://secretary.upenn.edu/ceremonies/honorary-degree-recipients/alphabetical/w|url-status=dead}}
• John Dos Passos Prize for Literature (1986){{Cite web|title=Dos Passos Prize Past Recipients and Select Works|url=http://www.longwood.edu/english/dos-passos-prize/past-recipients-and-select-works/|access-date=2019-05-10|website=www.longwood.edu|language=en}}
• Lannan Literary Award in Fiction (1991){{Cite web|title=John Edgar Wideman|url=https://lannan.org/literary/detail/john-edgar-wideman/fiction-award|access-date=2019-05-10|website=Lannan Foundation|language=en}}
• Honorary Doctorate, Rutgers University (1991){{Cite web|title=Past Rutgers University Honorary Degree Recipients {{!}} Page 11 {{!}} Office of the Secretary of the University|url=https://universitysecretary.rutgers.edu/degrees?page=10|access-date=2019-05-10|website=universitysecretary.rutgers.edu}}
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Elected Member (1992)[https://www.amacad.org/person/john-edgar-wideman "Member Directory"], American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• St. Botolph Club Foundation Distinguished Artist Award (1992){{Cite web|last=sbcfadmin|title=Distinguished Artist Award – St. Botolph Club Foundation|url=http://sbcfboston.beyondbracketsandpixels.com/category/distinguished-artist-award/|access-date=2019-05-10|language=en-US|archive-date=July 6, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190706033851/http://sbcfboston.beyondbracketsandpixels.com/category/distinguished-artist-award/|url-status=usurped}}
• MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1993)
• Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award (1998){{Cite web|title=Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award|url=https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/Documents/Lila-Wallace-Readers-Digest-Writers-Award.pdf|website=wallacefoundation.org}}
• Rea Award for the Short Story (1998){{cite web|title=Rea Award for the Short Story: John Edgar Wideman|url=https://reaaward.org/john-edgar-wideman/|access-date=26 March 2019|website=reaaward.org|publisher=Dungannon Foundation}}
• Honorary Doctorate, Colby College (1998){{Cite web|title=UMass Amherst English Professor John Edgar Wideman Awarded Honorary Degree by Colby College|url=https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-english-professor-john-edgar-wideman-awarded-honorary-degree-colby-college|access-date=2019-05-10|website=Office of News & Media Relations {{!}} UMass Amherst|language=en|archive-date=May 6, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190506173053/https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-english-professor-john-edgar-wideman-awarded-honorary-degree-colby-college|url-status=dead}}
• Honorary Doctorate, University of Bern (1998){{Cite web|last=Universitat Bern|date=2017|title=List of Honorary Promotions|url=https://www.unibe.ch/e809/e991/e1104/e198535/e188721/e627591/section627592/files627609/Liste_Ehrenpromotionen_2016_ger.pdf|access-date=January 21, 2020|website=www.unibe.ch}}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• Honorary Doctorate, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (1999){{Cite web|title=John Jay College Faculty Senate Minutes April 1999|url=https://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/senate/min184_29april99.pdf|website=www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu}}
• New England Book Award for Literary Excellence (2001){{Cite web|title=New England Book Awards – NEIBA|url=http://www.newenglandbooks.org/programs/awards-scholarships/newenglandbookawards/|access-date=2019-05-10|language=en-US}}
• Honorary Doctorate, Columbia College Chicago (2003){{Cite web|title=Honorary Degree Recipients - College Archives|url=https://library.colum.edu/archives/college-history/honorary-degrees.php|website=library.colum.edu}}
• Langston Hughes Medal (2004){{Cite web|last=Admin|first=Website|date=2015-07-04|title=Medallion Recipients {{!}} The City College of New York|url=https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/lhf/medallion-recipients|access-date=2019-05-11|website=www.ccny.cuny.edu|language=en-US}}
• American Philosophical Society, Elected Member (2005){{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=John+Edgar+Wideman&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-05-28|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}
• Katherine Anne Porter Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2008){{Cite web|title=Awards – American Academy of Arts and Letters|url=http://artsandletters.org/awards/|access-date=2019-05-14|language=en-US}}
• Honorary Doctorate, State University of New York at New Paltz (2010){{Cite web|last=SysAdmin|title=Distinguished Speaker Series: John Edgar Wideman – SUNY New Paltz News|date=September 30, 2010 |url=https://sites.newpaltz.edu/news/2010/09/distinguished-speaker-series-john-edgar-wideman/|access-date=2019-05-10|language=en-US}}
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Award (2011)[http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/2011/08/76th-annual-anisfield-wolf-book-prize-winners-announced/ "76th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize Winners Announced"], August 11, 2011.
• American Academy of Arts and Letters, Elected Member (2016)[http://artsandletters.org/pressrelease/2016-newly-elected-members/ "2016 Newly Elected Members"], American Academy of Arts and Letters.
• Honorary Doctorate, Duquesne University (2017){{Cite web|title=Bill Strickland, John Edgar Wideman to Receive Duquesne Honorary Degrees|url=https://www.duq.edu/news/bill-strickland-john-edgar-wideman-to-receive-duquesne-honorary-degrees|access-date=2019-05-10|website=www.duq.edu|language=en}}
• Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement (2018){{cite web|title=John Edgar Wideman Lannan Literary Award|url=https://lannan.org/literary/detail/john-edgar-wideman-1|access-date=26 March 2019|website=lannan.org|publisher=Lannan Foundation}}
• Stephen E. Henderson Award for Outstanding Achievement (2019){{Cite web|last=Pierrot|first=Gregory|date=2019-03-31|title=2019 AALCS AWARDS RECIPIENTS|url=https://aalcsblog.wordpress.com/2019/03/31/2019-aalcs-awards-recipients/|access-date=2019-05-10|website=African American Literature and Culture Society|language=en}}
• PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story (2019){{Cite web|title=Announcing the 2019 PEN/Malamud Award Winner!|url=https://www.penfaulkner.org/2019/06/03/announcing-the-2019-pen-malamud-award-winner/|access-date=2019-07-31|website=The PEN/Faulkner Foundation|language=en-US}}
• [https://www.fscottfestival.org/ F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature] (2021){{Cite web|last=Matthews|first=Larry|date=June 1, 2021|title=An Interview with John Edgar Wideman|url=http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/features/an-interview-with-john-edgar-wideman|access-date=2021-07-30|website=Washington Independent Review of Books}}

• American Library Association Notable Books List for Sent for You Yesterday (1984){{Cite web|date=1984|title=ALA Notable Books List 1983|url=http://www.ala.org/rusa/sites/ala.org.rusa/files/content/awards/notablebooks/lists/1983_NotableBooks.pdf|access-date=September 25, 2019|website=American Library Association}}
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for Sent for You Yesterday (1984){{Cite web|title=Past Winners and Finalists {{!}} The PEN/Faulkner Foundation|url=https://www.penfaulkner.org/award-for-fiction/past-award-winners-finalists/|access-date=2019-05-10|language=en-US|archive-date=June 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200618220036/https://www.penfaulkner.org/award-for-fiction/past-award-winners-finalists/|url-status=dead}}
• American Library Association Notable Books List for Brothers and Keepers (1985){{Cite web|date=1985|title=ALA Notable Books List 1984|url=http://www.ala.org/rusa/sites/ala.org.rusa/files/content/awards/notablebooks/lists/1984_NotableBooks.pdf|access-date=September 25, 2019|website=American Library Association}}
• National Magazine Award for "Doc's Story", originally published in Esquire (1987){{cite web|title=National Magazine Award Winners 1966-2015|url=https://asme.magazine.org/asme/national-magazine-award-winners-1966-2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326181742/https://asme.magazine.org/asme/national-magazine-award-winners-1966-2015|archive-date=March 26, 2019|access-date=March 20, 2019|website=asme.magazine.org|publisher=American Society of Magazine Editors}}
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for Philadelphia Fire (1991)
• American Book Award for Philadelphia Fire (1991){{Cite web|title=American Book Awards Previous Winners|url=http://www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Aba2001prior.pdf|website=beforecolumbusfoundation.com}}
• James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction for The Cattle Killing (1997){{Cite web|title=Society of American Historians Prize for Historical Fiction (formerly known as the James Fenimore Cooper Prize) {{!}} Society of American Historians|url=https://sah.columbia.edu/content/prizes/society-american-historians-prize-historical-fiction-formerly-known-james-fenimore|access-date=2019-05-10|website=sah.columbia.edu}}
• O. Henry Award for "Weight", originally published in Callaloo (2000){{cite web|date=October 6, 2000|title=English Professor John Edgar Wideman of UMass Amherst Receives O. Henry Award for Best Short Story|url=https://www.umass.edu/archivenewsoffice/article/english-professor-john-edgar-wideman-umass-amherst-receives-o-henry-award-best-short-story|access-date=March 27, 2022|website=umass.edu|publisher=University of Massachusetts}}
• O. Henry Award for "Microstories", originally published in Harper's Magazine (2010){{Cite web|title=PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2010 {{!}} PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books|url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/57130/peno-henry-prize-stories-2010-by-edited-and-with-an-introduction-by-laura-furman/9780307472366|access-date=2019-09-05|website=PenguinRandomhouse.com|language=en-US}}
• Prix Femina Étranger for Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File (2017){{Cite web|title=John Edgar Wideman – Canongate Books|url=https://canongate.co.uk/contributors/12665-john-edgar-wideman/|access-date=2019-05-10|website=canongate.co.uk|language=en}}
• PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File (2017){{Cite web|title=Awards & Award Winners|url=https://www.penoakland.com/awards-winners|access-date=2019-09-12|website=PEN Oakland|language=en-US|archive-date=May 14, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190514072907/https://www.penoakland.com/awards-winners|url-status=dead}}
• O. Henry Award for "Maps and Ledgers", originally published in Harper's Magazine (2019){{Cite web|date=2019-05-16|title=Announcing the 100th Annual O. Henry Prize|url=https://lithub.com/announcing-the-100th-annual-o-henry-prize/|access-date=2019-09-05|website=Literary Hub|language=en-US}}
• The Wall Street Journal "10 Best Books of 2021" for Look for Me and I'll Be Gone (2021){{Cite news|last=Staff|first=WSJ Books|date=2021-12-01|title=The 10 Best Books of 2021|language=en-US|work=Wall Street Journal|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-10-best-books-of-2021-year-fiction-nonfiction-11638382629|access-date=2021-12-10|issn=0099-9660}}

Wideman's winning the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991 marked the first time a writer had won that prize twice, a feat that has since been accomplished by three other writers: Philip Roth, E. L. Doctorow, and Ha Jin.

In addition, Wideman's memoir, Brothers and Keepers, and his book, Writing to Save a Life, were both finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award.{{Cite web|title=National Book Critics Circle: awards|url=http://bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018063346/http://bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards/|archive-date=October 18, 2015|access-date=2019-05-10|website=bookcritics.org}}{{cite web|url= https://www.vulture.com/2017/01/national-book-critics-circle-awards-finalist-zadie-smith-michael-chabon.html |title= Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith Are Among the Finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards |first= Jordan |last= Crucchiola |work= Vulture |date= January 17, 2017 |access-date= December 12, 2023 |archive-date= December 12, 2023 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20231212064409/https://www.vulture.com/2017/01/national-book-critics-circle-awards-finalist-zadie-smith-michael-chabon.html |url-status=live}}
{{cite news|url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/louise-erdrich-wins-nbcc-fiction-prize-for-larose/2017/03/16/761a3a10-08e3-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html |title= Louise Erdrich wins NBCC fiction prize for 'LaRose' |first= Ron |last= Charles |newspaper= The Washington Post |date= March 16, 2017 |access-date= December 12, 2023 |archive-date= December 12, 2023 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20231212063521/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/louise-erdrich-wins-nbcc-fiction-prize-for-larose/2017/03/16/761a3a10-08e3-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html |url-status=live}} His memoir, Fatheralong, was a finalist for the National Book Award.{{Cite web|title=National Book Awards 1994|url=https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1994/|access-date=2019-05-10|website=National Book Foundation|language=en-US}}

Wideman's short works have been widely anthologized, including in the Norton Anthology of African American Literature,{{Cite web|title=Contents {{!}} The Norton Anthology of African American Literature {{!}} W. W. Norton & Company|url=https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393911558/about-the-book/table-of-contents|access-date=2019-05-10|website=books.wwnorton.com}} the Oxford Book of American Short Stories,{{Cite book|title=Table of Contents: Oxford Book of American Short Stories|url=https://library.villanova.edu/Find/Record/429724/TOC|via=library.villanova.edu|year=1992 |publisher=Oxford university press |isbn=978-0-19-507065-1 }} and The Heath Anthology of American Literature,{{Cite web|title=Heath Anthology of American Literature John Edgar Wideman - Author Page|url=https://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/contemporary/wideman_jo.html|access-date=2019-05-19|website=college.cengage.com}} among others.

Wideman has been a visiting fellow, professor, or speaker at numerous institutions. His work has been translated into many languages.

{{reflist|group=lower-greek}}

{{Reflist}}

• Auger, Philip, Native Sons in No Man's Land: Rewriting Afro-American Manhood in the Novels of Baldwin, Walker, Wideman, and Gaines, New York: Garland Publishing, 2000. {{ISBN|978-0815330608}}
• Byerman, Keith E., John Edgar Wideman: A Study of the Short Fiction, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998. {{ISBN|978-0805708707}}
• Byerman, Keith E., The Life and Work of John Edgar Wideman, Santa Barbara: Praeger Books, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0313366345}}
• Casmier, Stephen, African American Literature of the Twenty-First Century and the Black Arts: The Case of John Edgar Wideman, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2021. {{ISBN|978-1-7936-1460-5}}
• Church Guzzio, Tracie, All Stories are True: History, Myth, and Trauma in the Work of John Edgar Wideman, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1617030048}}
• Coleman, James W., Blackness and Modernism: The Literary Career of John Edgar Wideman, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989. {{ISBN|978-0878053919}}
• Coleman, James W., Writing Blackness: John Edgar Wideman's Art and Experimentation, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0807136447}}
• D'Amore, Jonathan, American Authorship and Autobiographical Narrative: Mailer, Wideman, Eggers, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. {{ISBN|978-0230390676}}
• Dubey, Madhu, Signs and Cities: Black Literary Postmodernism, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003. {{ISBN|978-0226167268}}
• Eschborn, Ulrich, Stories of Survival: John Edgar Wideman's Representations of History, Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2011. {{ISBN|978-3868212914}}
• Feith, Michel, John Edgar Wideman and Modernity: A Critical Dialogue, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2019. {{ISBN|978-1621904335}}
• Mbalia, Doreatha Drummond, John Edgar Wideman: Reclaiming the African Personality, Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press; and London: Associated University Presses, 1995. {{ISBN|978-0945636786}}
• Miller, D. Quentin, Understanding John Edgar Wideman, Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2018. {{ISBN|978-1611178241}}
• Murray, Rolland, Our Living Manhood: Literature, Black Power, and Masculine Ideology, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0812239720}}
• Rowell, Charles Henry (editor), Callaloo Special Issue: John Edgar Wideman: The European Response, Volume 22, Number 3, Summer 1999, The Johns Hopkins University Press. {{ISSN|0161-2492}}
• TuSmith, Bonnie (editor), Conversations with John Edgar Wideman, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998. {{ISBN|978-1578060535}}
• TuSmith, Bonnie, and Keith E. Byerman (editors), Critical Essays on John Edgar Wideman, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006. {{ISBN|978-1572334694}}

• [https://guides.library.duq.edu/wideman/ The John Edgar Wideman Experience] Online resources from Duquesne University
• [https://sites.psu.edu/pablackwriters/the-writers/john-edgar-wideman/ Black Writers of PA: John Edgar Wideman] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190504225103/http://sites.psu.edu/pablackwriters/the-writers/john-edgar-wideman/ |date=May 4, 2019 }} Bibliographic resource from Pennsylvania State University
• [http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990081368690203941/catalog John Edgar Wideman Papers] Collection at Houghton Library, Harvard University
• [http://webspace.ship.edu/rejani/ John Edgar Wideman Literary Society] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110618054549/http://webspace.ship.edu/rejani/ |date=June 18, 2011 }} Scholarly society dedicated to Wideman's work

{{American Book Awards}}

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