In 1985 police bombed a West Philadelphia row house. Eleven people died & a fire started that destroyed sixty other houses. John Edgar Wideman brings these events & their repercussions to shocking life in this seminal novel. At the heart of Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer & exile who returns to his old neighbourhood & 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 & celebrated works, Philadelphia Fire is about race, life & survival in urban America.