John Edgar Wideman

John Edgar Wideman is Asa Messer Professor and Professor of Africana Studies and Literary Arts. Wideman is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the O. Henry Award, the American Book Award for Fiction, the Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, and a MacArthur Fellowship. He was the first individual to win the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pennsylvania in 1963, Wideman became the second African American to receive a Rhodes scholarship, receiving a B.Ph. from Oxford University's New College in 1966.