Harper Lee, who wrote one of America’s most enduring literary classics, “To kill a mockingbird”, has died at 89.
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Gone Girl star Ratajkowski wrote, “RIP Harper Lee“. (Decades later black activists would complain about Mockingbird’s popularity and the fact that its perspective – especially with regard to the Finch family’s maid, Calpurnia – is so unblinkingly white.) But unlike her childhood friend Truman Capote – on whom the book’s character Dill is based – she was not interested in courting celebrity and stubbornly kept to herself. Harper Lee died in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.
Then, the second twist: Last year, after some 55 years of waiting, Lee decided it was time to publish a second novel, Go Set a Watchman.
Fifty Shades Of Grey author, E L James, tweeted: “RIP Harper Lee”.
The book was adapted into a film in 1962 by Robert Mulligan, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus under the French title To Kill shadows.
“She lived the life she wanted – in private – surrounded by books and the people who loved him”. For years, Hohoff had worked with Lee on radical revisions to the text, from 1957 to the book’s eventual publication in 1960, according to The New York Times.
Harper Lee had also received the 2010 President Barack Obama the National Medal of Arts. She was quoting Thomas More and setting me straight on Tudor history. To Kill a Mockingbird was a masterpiece. “You don’t ever consider somebody like that passing, even though her legacy will last for generations after”.
“The people who have To Kill a Mockingbird seared in memory – their first reading experience of To Kill a Mockingbird seared in their brain – it’s the biggest book club in the world”, Murphy says.
One angel nudges another, urging her to stand up, and says, “Harper Lee is passing”.
Following in her father’s footsteps, Lee studied law at the University of Alabama and became editor of the school’s humorous and literary magazine. “It was a gift to the world”.
Precocious child, she had learned to read very early, playing in Monroeville being one of the few distractions.
She worked as an airline reservation agent until a friend benevolently gave her enough money to quit her job for a year and become a full-time writer.
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At first, she dutifully promoted her work.
