'Undoubtedly the foremost chronicler of the urban African-American experience. A master storyteller, Wideman is both a witness and a prophet.' - CARYL PHILLIPS 'Wideman's stories have a wary, brooding spirit, a lonely intelligence. They carry a real but atrophied affection for America. He airs the problems of consciousness, including the fragile contingency of our existence.' - DWIGHT GARNER 'Praise for American Histories: 'The stories in American Histories read like an immense jazz riff . The acutely immersive world of American Histories is irresistible, and these profoundly moving stories will haunt you long after you've finished reading' - Guardian 'Wideman's rage against American injustice and racial prejudice burns magma-hot in his latest short stories .Immensely powerful .

Challenging, animating, enlivening and electrifying; it does what literature should do. It's a bruising experience that leaves you feeling vulnerable and excited and alive' - Spectator 'Wideman's stories range widely over experiences from slavery to the present day . All are illumined by a searching intelligence and a willingness to test the boundaries of the short story form' - New York Times 'Wideman is a writer who excels at dramatising African American sensibilities and this collection typically addresses issues of race, injustice and inequality with power and potency' - Observer 'With the scrupulous intelligence and meditative intensity that define all this author's work, the stories move from subjects like the Civil War and Nat Turner's rebellion to Mr. Wideman's family's tribulations, the two threads twining so intricately that they're impossible to separate . John Edgar Wideman's stories show he is a master of modernist collage' - Wall Street Journal.