Playwright August Wilson dies of cancer

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson has died of cancer at 60.

Wilson, who was diagnosed with liver cancer earlier this year, died overnight Saturday at Swedish Hospital in Seattle, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

He recently completed the last in a series of 10 plays that chronicle the tragedies and aspirations of African-Americans through each decade of the 20th century. Nine of the 10 plays were set in his native Pittsburgh.

The final play in the cycle, "Radio Golf," premiered in March at New Haven's Yale Repertory Theatre, where the earlier plays in the cycle were first produced in the 1980s.

Even while suffering from cancer and recovering from a small stroke, Wilson kept re-writing for the play's second production at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum, July 31-Sept. 18, the newspaper said.

Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony for best play in 1986 for "Fences," and again in 1990 for "The Piano Lesson."

He was nominated for the Tony for best play for "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" (1985); "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" (1988); "Two Trains Running" (1992); "Seven Guitars" (1996); "King Hedley II" (2001); and "Gem of the Ocean" (2005).

Funeral arrangements are pending.