Philadelphia Fire (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: John Edgar Wideman
- First Published: 1990
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social criticism
- Time of Work: The 1960’s and the 1980’s
- Setting: Primarily Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Principal Characters: Cudjoe, Simba Mintu, Margaret Jones, John Africa (James Brown), Sam, Timbo, John Edgar Wideman, J. B.
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: African Americans, 1960’s, Homelessness or homeless people, Prisons, Adolescence, Biracial people, Police, Self, Authors or writers, Dreams, 1980’s, Inner cities or inner-city life, Violence, Philadelphia, Bombs, Letters, Orphans or orphanages, Fire
- Locales: Philadelphia, PA
The Novel
After learning of the 1985 police attack on the Philadelphia headquarters of John Africa’s MOVE organization, an attack that destroyed fifty-three houses and killed eleven people, Cudjoe, a once-promising black novelist, leaves the Greek island where he has been living since his divorce and returns to Philadelphia. There he hopes to find some explanation for this seemingly senseless tragedy, and then, like Wideman, to write about it. First he must locate Simba, the child who escaped the fire at the MOVE compound. Simba, orphaned as a result of the fire, stands for...
[The entire page is 3011 words long]
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