Harper Lee Author of To Kill A Mockingbird Passes Away At 89

Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird sold 50m copies

Nelle Harper Lee published To Kill A Mockingbird in 1960

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction

Photo credit: Robert E. Kennedy Library at Cal Poly via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC

Harper Lee has passed away at the age of 89. She was born on 28 April 1926. She wrote To Kill A Mockingbird in 1960. It turned out to be an international bestseller during that period. Over 50 million copies were sold worldwide. Her death has been confirmed formally by the mayor’s office. She was living in Monroeville, Alabama. Her complete name is Nelle Harper Lee. Her novel To Kill A Mockingbird was well acclaimed by critics. On commercial front also the novel was a huge success. That way it did tremendously well on both fronts. It became popular all across the globe. The US writer became a well-known entity in no time. Her father Amasa Coleman Lee was a lawyer by profession. She was the youngest of four children. She was quite close to her mother Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. She was quite reserved in nature. She preferred to stay isolated and was a private person. She was never after fame and usually avoided giving interviews.

Photo credit: Peggy O'Connor via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-SA

She is acknowledged as a great writer in literary circles. She possessed a superb intellect and was a brilliant person. There are a number of bookstores exclusively dedicated to her work. She was quite frank in her opinions. She is said to be ahead of the world. The world was not ready to absorb the truths she presented through her brilliant work. Monroeville will be missing her for long as she was among the most respected and protected personalities there. She has created a void with her absence. She always put conscience on top of everything. She has in fact, written a sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird that was revealed in 2015. It was titled as Go Set A Watchman and was published in the same year. The news made many bookshops in the United States remain open all night due to heavy demand of her novels. The astonishing fact about these two books is that Go Set A Watchman was written before To Kill A Mockingbird. The former book’s events start after 20 years where the latter ended. There are few common characters in both the books like Atticus Finch and her daughter Scout.

 

Photo credit: Gwydion M. Williams via VisualHunt / CC BY

Initially there were certain confusions created soon after To Kill A Mockingbird was published in 1960. It was stated to carry some racist views in its story. Probably the world took some time to understand the real Harper Lee, her frankness, openness and sharp talent. The book talks about issues of biases towards various races and discrimination among various classes in society. It also highlighted societies and people loosing virtuousness. Her work is highly acclaimed all across the globe. Harper Lee was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 by George Bush.

The world has lost a fantastico writer, person and thinker. 

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