Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Wideman, John Edgar - John Edgar Wideman with Jessica L. Lustig (interview date Fall 1992)


Wideman, John Edgar - John Edgar Wideman with Jessica L. Lustig (interview date Fall 1992)

John Edgar Wideman with Jessica L. Lustig (interview date Fall 1992)

SOURCE: "Home: An Interview with John Edgar Wideman," in African American Review, Vol. 26, No. 3, Fall, 1992, pp. 453-57.

[In the following interview, Wideman discusses the "fictional, constructed landscapes" he created in his works.]

I went to Amherst, Massachusetts, on April 23, 1992, to talk with John Edgar Wideman on the U Mass campus, where he teaches a graduate course in creative writing. Wideman's literary mapping and charting of Homewood's neighborhood streets and people indicate the complexities and paradoxes of contemporary American urban literature. In discussing his portraits of Homewood in Damballah, Hiding Place, Sent for You Yesterday, and Reuben, we explored the ways in which fictional, constructed landscapes can be read.

[Lustig:] You moved from Homewood when you were twelve, yet it's the place that you keep circling back to. I...

[The entire page is 2856 words long]

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