O’Connor, Flannery (1925-1964), was an American author whose novels and stories are filled with characters who are physically deformed or emotionally or spiritually disturbed. Some are obsessed with religion and the possibility of their own damnation or salvation. However, O’Connor’s books also contain humor, irony, and satire.
Mary Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia. Her Southern heritage and her Roman Catholicism strongly influenced her writing. She suffered from poor health most of her life and could complete only a few works. They include two novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960). Her stories were collected in A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge, published in 1965 after her death. The stories in these two collections are included in Flannery O’Connor: The Complete Stories, published in 1971. This collection won the 1972 National Book Award for fiction. Mystery and Manners, essays and lectures on literature and writing, was published in 1969. A collection of her letters called The Habit of Being was published in 1979. O’Connor died on Aug. 3, 1964. In 1988, the Library of America published an authoritative edition of her Collected Works.
