Flannery O' Conner

Mary Flannery O' Connor

"One writer that invites you to go beyond words is Flannery O'Connor. The contradictions of violence and faith in her fiction writings distinguishes her among Southern writers and makes one wonder who she was and where she was from" (McGovern n.p). O' Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia. She was an only child. She started high school in Georgia, but was unable to finish because her family move to Milledgeville in 1938. Flannery led a rather uneventful life that was focused almost exclusively on her vocation as a writer and devotion to her Catholic faith. She held no jobs, subsisting solely on grants, fellowships and royalties from her writing. Her father was discovered to have lupus and died three years later. She attended the Peabody high school and the Georgia state college for women. O'Connor decided to further extend her education by going to the University of Iowa. There she began to attend writer's workshops and wrote the first of her short stories. While at the university, she wrote her first novel, Wise Blood. In 1949 she moved to Connecticut. She then became seriously ill one year later, and was diagnosed with lupus. She died from lupus, the same disease which shortened her father's life" (McGovern). Her grave site is located at Memorial Hill cemetery. Before her tragic death which claimed her young life at the age of 39, she had written two novels and thirty two short stories, as well as commentaries and reviews.

Flannery O' Connors works:

* Wise Blood. Harcourt, 1952

* A Good Man Is Hard To Find, Harcourt, 1955. Published in England

as The Artificial Nigger. Neville Spearman, 1957

* The Violent Bear It Away. Farrar, Straus, 1960

* A Memoir of Mary Ann. (Editor and author of introduction), Farrar, O'Connor Bibliography (p3 of 12)

Straus, 1962. Published in England as Death of a Child. Burns

& Oates, 1961

* Three by Flannery O'Connor. Signet, 1964

* Everything That Rises Must Converge. Farrar, Straus, 1965

* Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald, Farrar, Straus, 1969

* The Complete Short Stories. Farrar, Straus, 1971

* The Habit of Being: Letters. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald, Farrar, Straus, 1979

* The Presence of Grace and Other Book Reviews. Edited by Carter W.

Martin, University of Georgia Press, 1983

* Collected Works (contains Wise Blood, A Good Man Is Hard To Find, The Violent Bear It Away, and Everything That Rises Must Converge), edited by Sally Fitzgerald, Library of America, 1988.

AWARDS and ACHIEVEMENTS

* First Prize, O. Henry Memorial Awards

-- "Greenleaf, 1957

--Everything That Rises Must Converge 1963

-- Revelation, 1965

* Litt. D., St. Mary's College, 1962

* Litt. D., Smith College, 1963

* Henry H. Bellaman Foundation special award, 1964

* National Book Award for The Complete Short Stories, 1972

* Board Award, National Critics Circle; Notable Book citation, Library Journal; Bowdoin College Award; Christopher Award; all for The Habit of Being: Letters, 1980.

(Information provided by http://library.gcsu.edu/~sc/foc.html)

Flannery O' Connor was respected by most critics.