Women’s History Month: Flannery O’Connor
March 25, 2020
World Book celebrates Women’s History Month with birthday wishes for the American writer Flannery O’Connor, who was born 95 years ago today on March 25, 1925. O’Connor is described as a Southern Gothic writer, meaning her stories often reflected the tensions and darker sides of the American South during her lifetime. Her novels and stories are filled with characters who are physically deformed or emotionally or spiritually disturbed. Some are obsessed with religion and the possibility of their own damnation or salvation. However, O’Connor’s works also contain humor, irony, and satire. O’Connor died of the disease lupus at age 39 on Aug. 3, 1964.
The American writer Flannery O’Connor was born 95 years ago today on March 25, 1925. credit: Will Schofield (licensed under CC BY 2.0)
Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia. Her family later moved to Millidgeville in central Georgia, where she attended the Georgia State College for Women (now Georgia College and State University). O’Connor edited the college’s literary magazine and contributed essays, fiction, and cartoons. She later received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa’s famous writers’ workshop.
O’Connor suffered from poor health most of her life and could complete only a few works. They include two novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960). Her stories were collected in A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge, published in 1965 after her death. The stories in these two collections are included in Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories, published in 1971. This collection won the 1972 National Book Award for fiction. Mystery and Manners, essays and lectures on literature and writing, was published in 1969. A collection of her letters called The Habit of Being was published in 1979. In 1988, the Library of America published an authoritative edition of her Collected Works.
