Fences by August Wilson. New York. 1986. Plume/New American Library. 0452258421. 100 pages. paperback.
DESCRIPTION - ‘A work of tremendous impact that summons up gratitude for the beauty of its language, the truth of its character, the power of its portrayals.' - Chicago Tribune. The author of the 1984-85 Broadway season's best play, MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, returns with another powerful, stunning dramatic work that is sure to win him new acclaim and prizes. The protagonist of FENCES, Troy Maxson, is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. For Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black was to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But now the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation of the 60s . . . a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can . . . a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less. ‘ALWAYS ABSORBING . . . The work's protagonist - and grandest creation - is a Vesuvius of rage . . . . The play's finest moments perfectly capture that inky, almost imperceptibly agitated darkness just before the fences of racism, for a time, came crashing down.' - Frank Rich, The New York Times. ‘A moving story line and a hero almost Shakespearian in contour.' - Sylviane Gold, The Wall Street Journal.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - August Wilson (Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of 10 plays, collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle (or The Century Cycle), which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century. Plays in the series include Fences (1987) and The Piano Lesson (1990), each of which won Wilson the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984) and Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988). In 2006, Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. August Wilson was born in 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a two-room apartment behind a grocery store on Bedford Avenue in the city's Hill district. He learned to read at age four. At fifteen he quit high school and began his self-education at the Carnegie Library. At twenty he dedicated himself to writing poetry and supported himself with a series of jobs: dishwasher, short-order cook, porter, toy store stock boy, gardener, and mailroom clerk. At thirty-three he left Pittsburgh for St. Paul, Minnesota, where he turned to play writing. In addition to MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, FENCES, and JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE, August Wilson is the author of THE PIANO LESSON, which won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for drama, and TWO TRAINS RUNNING.
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