Harper Lee was a huge fan of Jane Austen’s writing, and once said (half-jokingly) that that all she wanted was to be “the Jane Austen of South Alabama.” [1]
Celebrated author of To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee, died aged 89 on 19 February 2016.
Harper Lee was a prize-winning American writer born on 28 April 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. She was the youngest of four children in her family. Lee attended the University of Alabama, where she studied law, but later dropped out to pursue her passion for writing.
In the 1950s, she moved to New York City, where she worked as an airline reservation clerk and wrote in her spare time. It was during this time that she began writing To Kill a Mockingbird. The book was published in 1960 and received widespread critical acclaim, becoming an instant classic. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and has sold millions of copies worldwide.
To Kill a Mockingbird provoked social change. It had a great impact on the American Civil Rights Movement, showing through fiction what it was like for a black man to face a court of white jurors when accused of raping a white woman. The book moved people, changed their minds and helped bring about greater equality in the American South.
Despite its tremendous success, To Kill a Mockingbird was Lee’s only published novel during her lifetime. She lived a relatively private life and was known for being reclusive. In 2006 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Notre Dame University. Lee has twice received the highest awards presented by the US Government: In 2007 President George W. Bush presented Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 2010 President Barack Obama awarded Lee the National Medal of Arts.
Lee died in her sleep on the morning of 19 February 2016, aged 89. Her funeral was held the following day at First United Methodist Church in Monroeville. She was laid to rest at her family burial plot, alongside her father and sister, Alice Lee in Monroeville’s Hillcrest Cemetery.