Porter, Katherine Anne (1890-1980), was an American writer noted mainly for her short stories. Her Collected Stories (1965) won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Porter’s most famous stories express political and social liberalism. Many contain religious symbolism, reflecting her Roman Catholic background. She made the setting for most of her short stories in a specific place, such as the American South, Mexico, or Europe.
Porter’s major collections are Flowering Judas (1930); Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939), a collection of three short novels; and The Leaning Tower (1944). Her only novel, Ship of Fools (1962), is a moral allegory that describes an ocean voyage from Mexico to Germany during the early 1930’s. The story reflects the social and political turmoil of that time. The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter (1970) is a collection of nonfiction.
Porter was born on May 15, 1890, in Indian Creek, Texas, near Brownwood. She died on Sept. 18, 1980.
