- Harper Lee, the elusive novelist whose child’s-eye view of racial injustice in a small Southern town, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” became standard reading for millions of young people and an Oscar-winning film, has died.
- To Kill a Mockingbird,” published in 1960, is the story of a girl nicknamed Scout growing up in a Depression-era Southern town. A black man has been wrongly accused of raping a white woman, and Scout’s father, the resolute lawyer Atticus Finch, defends him despite threats and the scorn of many.
- The book quickly became a best-seller.
- By 2015, its sales were reported by HarperCollins to be more than 40 million worldwide, making it one of the most widely read American novels of the 20th century.
- “Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cellphones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books,” she wrote.
- By 2014, she had given in to the digital age and allowed her novel to come out as an e-book, calling it “‘Mockingbird’ for a new generation.”
- A new play adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” will land on Broadway during the 2017-18
Tagged with: bestseller EBG February 2016 Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird