A daring life
Subtitle: a biography of Eudora Welty
By: Carolyn J. Brown
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Jackson
Language: eng
Number of pages: 124
ISBN-13: 9781617032950; 9781617032974
Subjects: American Authors; Biography; BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary
Description: "Mississippi author Eudora Welty--winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and the first living writer to be published in the Library of America series--mentored many of today's greatest fiction writers. This fascinating woman observed and wrote brilliantly throughout the majority of the twentieth century (1909-2001). Her life reflects a century of rapid change and is closely entwined with many events that mark our recent history. This biography tells Welty's story, beginning with her parents and their important influence on her reading and writing life. The chapters that follow focus on her education and her most important teachers as well as her life during the Depression and how her new career, just getting started, was interrupted by World War II. Throughout she shows independence and courage in her writing, especially during the turbulent civil rights period of the 1950s and 1960s. After years of care-giving and the deaths of all her immediate family members, Welty persevered, wrote acclaimed short stories, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for The Optimist's Daughter. Her popularity soared in the 1980s after she delivered the three William E. Massey Lectures to standing-room-only crowds at Harvard. The lectures were later published as One Writer's Beginnings and became a New York Times bestseller. This biography will introduce readers of all ages to one of the most significant writers of the past century, a prolific author who comprehends and transcends her Mississippi roots to create short stories, novels, and nonfiction that will endure for all time"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Life in Jackson: Eudora's early years; title: Eudora's education; title: The 1930's: finding her eye and her voice; title: Before the war: friends, fellowship, and early success; title: World War II: a promising career interrupted; title: The 1960s: personal and political unrest; title: Grief and recovery: The optimist's daughter and One writer's beginnings; title: The importance of friendship: Eudora's final days; title: Afterword Eudora Welty's house.