The Piano Lesson

A powerful exploration of the legacy of slavery in America, The Piano Lesson centers on a brother and sister in 1930s Pittsburgh as they argue over whether to sell the family piano, an instrument tainted by the wages of slavery. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1990.

The play is part of August Wilson's Century Cycle, his epic dramatization of the African American experience in the twentieth century.

This edition includes a foreword by Toni Morrison.

August Wilson (1945–2005) is the most influential and successful African American playwright. A two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author, his plays have been produced all over the world.

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) was a renowned American novelist and editor. Her work revolves around the varied nature of the Black American experience, past and present. Her novels include The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon (National Book Critics Circle Award), and Beloved (Pulitzer Prize). Among her accolades are the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, selection for The National Endowment for the Humanities' Jefferson Lecture, the National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President Barack Obama. Morrison was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2020.