Beloved American Author Dies
February 19, 2016
American author Harper Lee died today, February 19, at the age of 89. Lee became one of the most beloved writers in American literature through the success of a single novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961. It was adapted into a popular motion picture in 1962.
The plot of To Kill a Mockingbird centers on Atticus Finch, a compassionate small-town white lawyer in Alabama during the mid-1930’s who defends a young black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. The story is told by the lawyer’s six year-old daughter, nicknamed Scout. The appeal of the novel lies in the author’s ability to weave together the vivid eccentric characters of a Southern town, the observations of a sensitive child, and a plea for social justice.
During the mid-1950′s, Lee had written a novel that took place 20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird. The book centered on Finch’s daughter, now a 26-year old woman, returning to the small Alabama town where she was raised. The unpublished manuscript was forgotten until Lee’s lawyer rediscovered it in 2014. The book was published in 2015 as Go Set a Watchman. The sequel became an immediate best seller but also created considerable controversy. Much of the controversy concerned the new image of Atticus Finch as a racist with bigoted attitudes rather than the humane and tolerant figure of the first novel.
Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. She grew up in the state and attended the University of Alabama. After leaving school without a degree, Lee split her time between New York City and Monroeville. In New York City, Lee often spent time with a childhood friend, author Truman Capote, who had spent part of his childhood staying with an older cousin who lived next door to the Lee family. In Monroeville, Lee lived with her sister. In 2007, Lee received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor awarded by the president of the United States.
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