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Harper Lee was born April 28, 1926. She was the youngest of four children and grew up in Monroeville, Alabama. She was known to be a tomboy who loved the outdoors, much like her protagonist, Scout, in To Kill a Mockingbird. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was known to be mentally ill. She was childhood friends with Truman Capote who would later in life also become a writer.
After graduation in 1949, Lee moved to New York City to pursue her writing career. She struggled for a long time and it wasn’t until she wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning novel in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird, when she really got on her feet. The book later became a highly- acclaimed movie starring Gregory Peck. Go Set a Watchman, a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, was published in 2015. Lee originally wrote Go Set a Watchman first but her publisher told her to re-write it and make her main character, Scout, a child.
She worked with her childhood friend Capote on an article for The New Yorker. They had a falling out because Capote did not give Lee credit in one of their collaborations. They made-up later on and continued to remain as friends for the rest of Lee’s life. The critically esteemed author died in her sleep on February 19, 2016 in her hometown, Monroeville, Alabama.
‘Harper Lee announced she would be releasing a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird this summer – 55 years after her debut. Go Set a Watchman, completed in the mid-50s but lost for more than half a century, was written before To Kill A Mockingbird and features Scout as an adult ‘ Guardian
‘No one ever forgets this book ‘ Independent
‘Someone rare has written this very fine novel, a writer with the liveliest sense of life and the warmest, most authentic humour. A touching book; and so funny, so likeable’ Truman Capote
‘There is humour as well as tragedy in this book, besides its faint note of hope for human nature; and it is delightfully written’ Sunday Times
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