Nelle Harper Lee

Harper Lee
Lee on November 5, 2007
Born	Nelle Harper Lee (1926-04-28)April 28, 1926 Monroeville, Alabama, U.S.
Died	February 19, 2016(2016-02-19) (aged 89) Monroeville, Alabama, U.S.
Pen name	Harper Lee
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American
Period	1960–2016
Genre	Literature, fiction
Literary movement	Southern Gothic
Notable works	To Kill a Mockingbird Go Set a Watchman
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Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016), better known by her pen name Harper Lee, was an American novelist widely known for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Immediately successful, it won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Though Lee had only published this single book, in 2007 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. Additionally, Lee received numerous honorary degrees, though she declined to speak on those occasions. She was also known for assisting her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Capote was the basis for the character Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The plot and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old. The novel deals with the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two children. The novel was inspired by racist attitudes in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.

Another novel, Go Set a Watchman, was written in the mid-1950s and published in July 2015 as a "sequel", though it was later confirmed to be To Kill a Mockingbird's first draft.

Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama where she grew up as the youngest of four children of Frances Cunningham (Finch) and Amasa Coleman Lee. Her first name, Nelle, was her grandmother's name spelled backwards and the name she used; Harper Lee being primarily her pen name. Lee's mother was a homemaker; her father, a former newspaper editor and proprietor, practiced law and served in the Alabama State Legislature from 1926 to 1938. Before A.C. Lee became a title lawyer, he once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father and son, were hanged. Lee had three siblings: Alice Finch Lee (1911–2014), Louise Lee Conner (1916–2009), and Edwin Lee (1920–1951).