"August Wilson was one of the greatest playwrights in the history of the American stage. Despite his major critical acclaim, a sophisticated biography is long overdue. Patti Hartigan has filled this void with a deeply researched, impressively insightful biography that reveals in riveting detail why Wilson will be recalled as one of the greatest dramatists of the twentieth century. A must read for students of theatre and African American literature."--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

"Inarguably August Wilson is the most important voice in the American theater in the past century, and Patti Hartigan has captured the man, the theater, and the country. Her biography of August Wilson flows from its pages like the very stories that flow from August's masterful and beautiful ten-play cycle."--Kenny Leon, Tony Award-winning director for A Raisin in the Sun and director of Fences, Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf

"Masterful. . . . With painstaking research, stylistic verve, and an eye both admiring and exacting, Ms. Hartigan has pieced together the man behind the 20th Century Cycle, bringing Wilson to furious, complicated life. . . . An epic account."--Isaac Butler "The Wall Street Journal"

"An invaluable and highly absorbing new biography. . . . Wilson's artistic story, throbbing with the ancestral memory Wilson felt in his blood, is profoundly inspiring in Hartigan's magnificent rendering."--Charles McNulty "The Los Angeles Times"

"[Hartigan's] book is an achievement: It's solid and well reported. . . . Hartigan is adept at keeping the lines straight."--Dwight Garner "The New York Times"

"Patti Hartigan's August Wilson: A Life traces the larger context of his achievement as thoroughly as it does his distinctive vision. . . . [Her] descriptions of his idiosyncratic, youthful self-creation are a delight."--Imani Perry "The Atlantic"

"[An] absorbing, richly detailed biography. . . . The backstage drama on Wilson's biggest Broadway success comes to vivid life in Hartigan's book, along with Wilson's remarkable family history."--Michael Phillips "The Chicago Tribune"

"Riveting. . . . Hartigan, with this first comprehensive biography, has honored Wilson in the way he deserves."--Nathaniel G. Nesmith "American Theatre"

"No fan or scholar of August Wilson should dream of skipping this book. . . . [No one] will be able to avoid or overlook Hartigan's contribution, not just to Wilson scholarship but to American cultural history."--Paul Devlin "The New Criterion"