August Wilson's American Century: Life as Art -- Laurence A. Glasco, Hardcover

Playwright August Wilson is best known for his American Century Cycle, a sequence of ten plays--including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fences and The Piano Lesson--that chronicle the lives of Black Americans in each decade of the twentieth century. But behind the celebrated plays stands a complex man shaped by his hometown's vibrant Black culture. In August Wilson's American Century: Life as Art, Laurence A. Glasco, one of the foremost historians of Black life in Pittsburgh, draws on Wilson's early poetry, archival material, and original interviews with family members, neighbors, and friends to show how the city and its residents shaped the playwright and his work. Wilson's overlapping identities as an outsider, warrior, race man, and poet helped him persevere in the face of setbacks, weave real-life observations with his poetry to craft memorable dialogue and compelling characters, and portray the realities of race in America in ways that have resonated with theatergoers and readers ever since. Glasco uncovers the story of how the people and places of Pittsburgh remained with Wilson after he left his hometown, shining through in a body of work that brought the struggles and triumphs of the Black experience to a wide audience and changed American theater for the better, shining through in a body of work that brought the struggles and triumphs of the Black experience to a wide audience and changed American theater for the better.

Author: Laurence A. Glasco
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 02/10/2026
Pages: 360
Binding Type: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780822948544

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 11/01/2025
Library Journal 12/01/2025 pg. 76
Publishers Weekly 12/15/2025

About the Author
Laurence A. Glasco is professor emeritus of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author or coauthor of five books, including August Wilson: Pittsburgh Places in His Life and Plays (with Christopher Rawson).