In 1985 police bombed a West Philadelphia row house.Eleven people died and a fire started that destroyed sixty other houses.John Edgar Wideman brings these events and their repercussions to shocking life in this seminal novel. At the heart of Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighbourhood and who becomes obsessed with the search for a lone survivor of the event, a young boy seen running from the flames. One of Wideman's most ambitious and celebrated works, Philadelphia Fire is about race, life and survival in urban America.