Award-winning author, educator and social critic John Edgar Wideman will read from Two Cities: A Love Story and other works on Tuesday, February 23, at 4 p.m., in the William Benton Museum of Art.

Wideman is the first writer to win the PEN/Faulkner Award twice, in 1984 for Sent for You Yesterday and in 1990 for Philadelphia Fire. His nonfiction book Brothers and Keepers received a National Book Critics Circle nomination, and his memoir Fatheralong was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 1998 he won the prestigious Rea Award for the Short Story, which has also been awarded to such writers as Eudora Welty and John Cheever.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Wideman is the second African-American Rhodes Scholar, having studied literature at Oxford University. He has taught creative writing at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst since 1986. He is currently at work on a collection of essays about race and basketball.

Wideman will also hold an informal discussion about his works on February 23 from 2-3:30 p.m. at the African American Cultural Center. Students, faculty and staff are welcome to attend. The discussion is sponsored by the English department's Creative Writing Program and the AACC.

Sherry Fisher