August Wilson, 60, one of America's greatest playwrights, has told the Post-Gazette he is dying of liver cancer.

Michelle McLoughlin, Associated Press August Wilson, right, talked with actor Anthony Chisholm during rehearsal of Wilson's play "Radio Golf" at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., in April. Wilson returned to Yale to complete this final work in his series of plays he began there chronicling the black experience in 20th- century America. Click photo for larger image. Related coverage Visit our special index to learn more about August Wilson, his cycle of plays and his connection to Western Pennsylvania: "An August heritage / August Wilson and The Pittsburgh Cycle"

"It's not like poker, you can't throw your hand in," he said by phone from Seattle. "I've lived a blessed life. I'm ready."

Doctors at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle discovered his condition in June and recommended immediate chemoembolization -- cancer-fighting drugs injected directly into the tumor -- followed by a liver transplant. But the disease proved too far advanced for treatment. Wilson said his physicians told him then that he had a life expectancy of three to five months.

"I'm glad I finished the cycle [of plays]," Wilson said, referring to his famed Pittsburgh Cycle. An unequaled achievement in American drama, it chronicles the tragedies and aspirations of African Americans in 10 plays, one set in each decade of the 20th century.

The final and chronologically latest in the cycle, "Radio Golf," set in 1997, takes place, like all but one of the other nine, in Pittsburgh's Hill District. It premiered at New Haven's Yale Repertory Theatre in April and is currently having its second production at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum (through Sept. 18).

Wilson spent the two months after learning of his illness working on a major re-write of "Radio Golf," although his condition did not allow him to go to Los Angeles for the rehearsals, the first such absence in his career.

A Pittsburgh native, Wilson moved to St. Paul, Minn., in 1978 and to Seattle in 1990, where he lives with his wife, Constanza Romero, and their daughter, Azula Carmen Wilson, who will be 8 this week. He has an older daughter by a previous marriage, Sakina Ansari.

Wilson's plays include "Fences," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," "The Piano Lesson" and "Jitney." Together, the 10 of the Pittsburgh Cycle have won him a Tony Award, Olivier Award, two Pulitzer Prizes, five New Play Awards/Citations from the American Theatre Critics Association and seven New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. He also was nominated for an Emmy award.

His many other honors include honorary doctorates (from the University of Pittsburgh, among others), Rockefeller and Guggenheim fellowships, a National Humanities Medal and the 2003 Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities. He is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

One additional honor of which Wilson is especially proud: He has the only high school diploma issued by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, testimony to his experience of leaving school at 15 in disgust at being accused of falsifying a paper he wrote on Napoleon Bonaparte and then educating himself in his local Carnegie Library.

At present, he is working against time, as much as his condition allows, on a number of writing projects.