Pulitzer prize winner playwright August Wilson, famous for his plays revolving around the ails of 20th century African-Americans, passed away on October 2 at Swedish Hospital in Seattle due to liver cancer. He was 60.
Confirming his death, his personal aide Dena Levitin said, “He was surrounded by family.” Wilson is survived by his third wife, fashion designer Constanza Romero, and two daughters – Azula Carmen and Sakina Ansari.
The playwright's illness was revealed in August and he had only a few months of life left. During his last year, Wilson worked on
Radio Golf, the 10th and final play of the
Pittsburgh Cycle.
Radio Golf premiered in April at the Yale Repertory Theater.
Wilson's illustrious career began with
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom in 1984. He went on to write
Fences and
The Piano Lesson , both of which bagged the Pulitzer Prize. His other greats include
Joe Turner's Come and Gone ,
Jitney and
Seven Guitars .
Born April 27, 1945, as Frederick August Kittel, Wilson life began in Pittsburgh where his father was a German baker and his mother an African-American cleaning lady. Wilson's childhood was disturbed as his father abandoned his family and his mother, Daisy Wilson, brought him up along with his five siblings with great financial constraints. In 1965, Wilson's father passed away and he adopted his mother's maiden surname as his own. His mother remarried and moved to a suburb that was dominated by whites.
While in school, Wilson was subjected to racism. “There was a note on my desk every single day. It said, 'Go home, nigger',” he had once said. Later, when a teacher accused him of copying a paper on Napoleon, he abandoned formal education, choosing instead to read extensively to enhance his knowledge. The travails of black Americans became the dominating theme of his works.
As news of his demise broke, condolences poured in. “Each work (by Wilson) stands on its own as an important accomplishment, but taken together they are a singular body of achievement. I was lucky enough to have spent four days over the Labor Day weekend with him. It was obvious that he was sick, but his wit, his moral outrage, the lyrical storytelling, the love of his people were all there,” said director Marion McClinton, who directed Wilson's play
Gem of the Ocean in New York.
“He's done his bit. The heavyweight champion has moved on to a different arena but he left his gloves; now we have to be man and woman enough to put them on and continue the fight,” he added.
Said playwright Tony Kushner, “He was a giant figure in American theater. Heroic is not a word one uses often without embarrassment to describe a writer or playwright, but the diligence and ferocity of effort behind the creation of his body of work is really an epic story. The playwright's voice in American culture is perceived as having been usurped by television and film, but he reasserted the power of drama to describe large social forces, to explore the meaning of an entire people's experience in American history.”
After his diagnosis, Wilson had said in an interview, “I've lived a blessed life. I'm ready.”
As a tribute to Wilson's genius, the Virginia Theater would be renamed the August Wilson Theater in mid-October.
