October 03, 2005 @ 12:29 pm

Playwright August Wilson Dies

by: Alyssa Rashbaum

Among his most well-known plays in the series of 10 plays called his "Pittsburgh Cycle," were "Fences" and "Piano Lesson" for which he won the Pulitzer, as well as "Jitney," "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" and "Seven Guitars."

right In the last months of his life, Wilson worked on the final play in the series, "Radio Golf," which opened in Los Angeles last July.

Wilson's cycle dramatized black life throughout each decade of the 20th century, beginning with characters that remembered slavery and ending with members of the middle-class at the verge of the 21st century who were seeking wealth and political power, according to Reuters.

The son of an African-American mother and white German immigrant father, Wilson was raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, where all his plays were based. In June he was diagnosed with cancer that was too far advanced for the playwright to receive treatment.

Wilson is survived by his wife, costume designer Constanza Romero, their daughter Azula Carmen, and a daughter from a previous marriage named Sakina Ansari.

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