WHO IS SHE?
Harper Lee (Alabama, 1926)
was an American writer born and raised in a small town in the southern United
States. As a child she was a precocious reader and study partner and neighbor
of Truman Capote. After graduating from high school, she went to a university
exclusively for women where she started a law degree and was editor of the
humor magazine. Although she did not complete her studies, she studied a summer
in Oxford before moving to New York definitively in 1950. In this city she
worked as an employee in an airline before dedicating herself completely to
writing. Harper completed his masterpiece, "Kill a Mockingbird" in
the summer of 1959. After its publication in 1690, the novel became an
immediate success that was received graciously by critics and by the public.
Harper did not give interviews and lived a modest
retired life in his hometown. In 2007 she received the "Presidential Medal
of Freedom" from the president of the United States. UU George W. Bush in
the White House. The sequel to "Kill a Nightingale", titled
("Go, Set a Watchman"), was published on July 14, 2015. A year later
the author died while asleep.
WHAT HAS SHE
WRITTEN?
Harper Lee wrote several articles published in the
American press between 1961 and 2006, as well as long stories. However, her two emblematic novels are:
- “To Kill a
Mockingbird" (1960): won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. It
is a plea for equality, justice and against racism; It narrates the life
in the town of the writer during the years of the Great Depression and,
specifically, an episode occurred in which Atticus Finch, a respected man
in his community and model of righteousness, defends an African-American
man falsely accused of rape of a white woman, in the framework of a very
racist South, where the prejudices by the color of the skin suppose the
condemnation.
- "Go, Set a
Watchman" (2015): it is a sequel to her first novel, the
story is placed about 20 years later, when Scout returns to Maycomb from
New York to visit his father, Atticus Finch.
WHAT HAS SHE SAID?
“You never really understand a person until you
consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin
and walk around in it.”
― Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird”
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to
read. One does not love breathing.”
― Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird”
“People generally see what they look for, and hear what
they listen for.”
― Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird”
WHY SHOULD WE NOT
FORGET HER AND HER WORK?
Harper Lee(1926-2016) is a
world-renowned author: her work "Kill a Mockingbird" remains a
bestseller with more than 30 million copies sold and in 1999 is was voted
"Best Novel of the Century" in a Library Journal poll. The issues she
has dealt with are timeless and relevant at any time and place (spatially
within the United States): equality, justice and racism.
-R.
