Harper Lee, ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Author, Dies At 89

Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird, died Friday morning. She was 89.

Harper Lee Dies

Lee’s passing was confirmed by multiples sources in her hometown of Monroeville, Ala., reported AL.com.

Lee submitted her manuscript for To Kill a Mockingbird in the mid-1950s, and after a rewrite, the book was published in 1960. The novel went on to be both a critical and commercial success. In 1961, Lee was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

In 1962, Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was made into a feature film. It too became a hit.

To Kill a Mockingbird was essentially a fictionalized take on Lee’s childhood in Monroeville, where she grew up as a neighbor of young Truman Capote. Figuring largely in To Kill a Mockingbird were the attitudes about both race and class in the Deep South in the 1930s. It’s told through the eyes of young girl named Scout, along with her brother Jem, friend Dill and noble father Atticus.

Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature in 2007. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2010.

Following the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee declined to publish any more novels. Go Set a Watchman, the original manuscript of To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 2015 surrounded by controversy.

Lee was predeceased by her sister, Alice.