The first ever collection of John Edgar Wideman’s most influential essays and articles, five decades of cultural and literary criticism that paint a vivid portrait of America’s changing landscape and chronicle the emergence and evolution of a major presence in fiction.
Wideman is a writer of titanic skill. He explores predicaments of race, place, sport, and music with a close attention, and he articulates his explorations—as intimate as they may be for him—in a way that is inviting, not alienating ... I think the triumph of Languages is that it...give[s] us a pathway through the mind of Wideman. His beliefs, his principles, his willingness to explore and not detach himself from his themes and the central engine of his oeuvre. If there is a way to approach this kind of text through a binary of success, I think it might be a book that feels especially useful for a writer to spend time with.
Through a mixture of journalism, literary and cultural criticism, and biographical and political essays, the varied career of the prolific Wideman is on full display in this new collection of his long-form nonfiction writing ... Wideman is always insightful, honest, and absorbing. This collection is an essential addition to a masterful oeuvre.
