August Wilson (1945 - 2005) was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, a Tony award winning author, and perhaps the most famous representative of African American theater. His remarkable career is celebrated in the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Wilson’s signature artistic achievement is his incredible “Pittsburgh Cycle” of plays, which are ten poetic, realistic, and incisive dramas documenting the African American experience over several decades. Stylistically, Wilson’s work combines seemingly disparate elements to portray the African American experience at the intersection of history, poetry, and everyday life. His plays including Jitney (1982), Fences (1984), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1986), The Piano Lesson (1987), King Hedley II (1999) are most likely to appear in anthologies as representative works of African American drama