Led by writers such as Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, who were more interested in craftsmanship than politics, this tradition moved closer toward the mainstream rather than away from its salient values.
Although he was among the cadre of young black writers that emerged during the 1960s, John Edgar Wideman did not align himself with the politically oriented black arts movement. Instead, from the beginning, he demonstrated an interest in an art that carefully and logically resulted from the creativity, expertise, and ability of the artist, rather than one that sought to announce the political convictions of its creator. His intricate style, which includes experimentation with form, the use of surrealism and stream of consciousness, and multiple allusions to literary masterpieces--coupled with the absence of a focus on racial or cultural experience--brought him immediate attention from critics who felt he had successfully established himself in a vein of contemporary American, rather than Afro-American, fiction. In 1978, Robert Bone, the author of The Negro Novel in America, declared that Wideman was "perhaps the most gifted black novelist of his generation."
John Edgar Wideman was born on 14 June 1941, in Washington, D.C., to Edgar and Betty French Wideman.
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