It remains one of the most widely taught pieces of literature in American schools. The narrator of the novel is his daughter, nicknamed Scout.
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HarperCollins reported in 2015 that more than 40 million copies of “To Kill a Mockingbird” were sold worldwide. The highly-acclaimed movie won three Oscars. “You have to start the conversation about race somewhere, and Harper Lee is a great place to start it”.
An English professor from UW-Madison told us that her passing is a loss to the literary community.
Lee’s 1960 novel, which earned her a Pulitzer Prize, came to define racial injustice in the Depression-era South and became standard reading in classrooms across the world.
“Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books”, she wrote. Public encouragement. I was hoping a little, I had a lot, and somehow it was as frightening as the quick death without pity I expected.
The book was Ms. Lee’s first and it immediately became a bestseller.
This is not a new novel: it was written in the late 50s, but refused by the publisher had asked the young novice to review its copy.
Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, who was released in January from an Iranian prison after he was charged with espionage and other serious crimes, said on Twitter that “To Kill a Mockingbird” helped him get through his trial. “She lived her life the way she wanted to – in private – surrounded by books and the people who loved her”. To discuss Lee’s legacy, we called the writer Lizzie Skurnick.
Lee died in her hometown of Monroeville in the southern state of Alabama.
She counted author Truman Capote among her childhood friends, and worked as an assistant on his novel “In Cold Blood”, which examined a multiple killing in Kansas, and was dedicated to Lee.
Author Stephen King (@StephenKing) honored not only Lee’s work but the influence her talent had on another famed author.
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However, Auerbach tells us that Lee enjoyed her privacy and her avoidance of media attention helped add to her fame. “I will always be grateful to have known Nelle in the last years of life as she had known it for so long, sharing their father’s house with her sister in the town that inspired ‘To Kill a Mockingbird'”. “It was a gift to the world”. George W Bush awarded her the presidential medal of freedom in 2007.
