# Fences

**Author:** August Wilson
**Grade range:** Grades 9–12
**Age range:** 14–18
**First published:** 1985
**Page count:** 112
**Genre:** Drama
**ISBN-13:** `9780452264014`
**ISBN-10:** `0452264014`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/fences
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play centers on Troy Maxson, a former Negro Leagues ballplayer turned sanitation worker whose disappointments shape every relationship in his household. As Troy clashes with his son Cory over opportunity and obligation, the play examines race, broken dreams, and the weight one generation passes to the next. Part of Wilson's ten-play Century Cycle, it is widely assigned in grades 9-12 for its language and its portrait of mid-century Black family life.

## Themes

- father-son relationships
- race
- family
- fatherhood
- ambition

## Content notes

- infidelity
- strong language

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