The lyrical masterpiece from John Edgar Wideman, one of the standout black American writers of the twentieth century. From 'one of America's premier writers of fiction' (New York Times) comes this novel inspired by the 1985 police bombing of a West Philadelphia row house. The bombing killed eleven people and started a fire that destroyed sixty other houses. At the centre of the story is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighborhood after spending a decade fleeing from his past, and his search for the lone survivor of the fire - a young boy who was seen running from the flames. One of the most ambitious and highly praised works of fiction, Philadelphia Fire is an impassioned, brutally honest journey through the despair and horror of life in urban America.