To Kill A Mockingbird Author Harper Lee Dies

Harper Lee, legendary author of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’ has died aged 89.

Lee’s own story has long since become as iconic as ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ itself. Published in 1960, her debut novel became an instant classic, and broke new ground in its progressive, unflinching depiction of race, class and gender relations.

The book won Lee the Pulitzer prize, and the story’s classic status was further solidified by the 1962 film adaptation, which cast Gregory Peck in an Oscar-winning performance as Atticus Finch.

The Robert Mulligan-directed film also won Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay (for screenwriter Horton Foote) and Best Art Direction. However, it lost out in many of the major categories, including Best Picture and Best Director, to ‘Laurence of Arabia.’

Lee was very happy with the movie, which she declared “a work of art,” and heaped praise on Peck’s performance; the two would remain friends afterwards.

However, Lee famously shunned publicity from the mid-60s onwards, and never published another novel - until the controversial publication of ‘Go Set a Watchman,’ a previously unpublished earlier draft of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’ which was rediscovered and brought to print in 2015, erroneously marketed as a sequel.

Lee has also been portrayed on film twice, by Catherine Keener in 2005′s ‘Capote’ (she had been a close friend of Truman Capote), and by Sandra Bullock in 2006′s ‘Infamous.’

A resident of Monroeville, Alabama until the end of her life, Lee was inducted to the Alabama Academy of Honour in 2007. She was also decorated by two presidents, being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W Bush in 2007, and the National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama in 2010.

Responding to her death on Friday, Obama declared, “Ms. Lee changed America for the better. And there is no higher tribute we can offer her than to keep telling this timeless American story – to our students, to our neighbors, and to our children – and to constantly try, in our own lives, to finally see each other.”

Picture Credit: Universal, WENN

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