Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American writer. She wrote fiction that explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South.

Life

She was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia of middle class parentage. Her mother was the granddaughter of a plantation owner and Confederate War hero. Her father, like Wilbur Kelly in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, was a watch repairman. She received a musical education and was sent to the Juilliard School of Music in New York City to study the piano – but she never attended, having lost the purse with the tuition money in it. Working menial jobs, she studied creative writing at night classes at Columbia University and Washington Square College.

Related Topics:
Columbus, Georgia - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Juilliard School of Music - New York City - Columbia University - Washington Square College

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In 1935 she moved to North Carolina, and in 1937 she married a soldier and struggling writer, Reeves McCullers. There she wrote her first novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. She separated from Reeves in 1940 (divorced 1941) and she moved again to New York to live with George Davis, the editor of

Related Topics:
1935 - North Carolina - 1937 - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - 1940 - 1941 - George Davis

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Harper's Bazaar. McCullers became part of Bohemian society in New York, mixing with W. H. Auden and Benjamin Britten. She remarried Reeves in 1945, but tried to commit suicide in 1948. After Carson

Related Topics:
Harper's Bazaar - W. H. Auden - Benjamin Britten - 1945 - 1948

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left him in 1953, Reeves killed himself in a Paris hotel.

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She suffered from strokes since her youth, and by the age of 31 her left side was entirely paralyzed. She

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died of the last of a series of strokes in 1967 in Nyack, New York.

Related Topics:
1967 - Nyack, New York

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