Flannery O'Connor
(1925–1964)

Flannery O'Connor's work reflects her intense commitment to her personal beliefs. In her exaggerated, tragic, and at times shockingly violent tales, she forces us to confront such human thoughts as hypocrisy, insensitivity, self-centeredness, and prejudice.

O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, and was raised in the small Georgia town of Milledgeville. She was educated at the Georgia State College for Women and studied at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. When she was 27, she published her fist novel, Wise Blood, the story of a violent rivalry of the members of a fictional religious sect in the South. In 1955, she published her first collection of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find. This was followed by a second novel, The Violent Bear It Away; and in 1965 Everything that Rises Must Converge, another collection of her stories, was published.

Unfortunately, throughout most of her adult life, O'Connor suffered from Lupus, a rare disease that eventually took her life. Because her disease set her apart from other people, O'Connor developed a deep sensitivity to misfits and outsiders. Not surprisingly, many of her most memorable characters are social outcasts or people who are in someway mentally or physically disabled. Although she portrays these characters in an unsentimental manner, there is an underlying sense of sympathy concerning their pain and suffering.

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