The Pulitzer prize-winning American playwright August Wilson who chronicled black America died on Sunday of liver cancer at a hospital in Seattle, Washington, surrounded by family and friends, his assistant announced. He was 60.
Wilson won wide acclaim for his stage plays, which focused on the African-American experience through the 20th century. The playwright disclosed his cancer in August, saying “I’ve lived a blessed life. I’m ready.”
He spent most of the summer, revising his final play, Radio Golf, prior to and after a production at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.
Born on April 27, 1945, Wilson — whose name at birth was Frederick August Kittel — rose from humble beginnings to become a nationally acclaimed playwright recognised for such works as Fences (1985) and The Piano Lesson (1986), both of which won Pulitzer prizes.
He changed his name to Wilson in 1965 after his father died.
Wilson dropped out of a high school in his native Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after a teacher accused him of plagiarising a paper on Napoleon and had to educate himself, spending hours at a local library.
He had a one-year stint with the United States army later worked as a short-order cook, dishwasher and gardener to earn money and support his passion for writing and theatre.
Wilson began writing plays in earnest in the late 1960s.
He joined in with several other black Pittsburgh poets and writers in setting up the Centre Avenue Poets Workshop and starting the Black Horizons Theatre Company in 1968. – AFP