Nelle Harper Lee (born April 28, 1926)

Nelle Harper Lee (born April 28, 1926) is an American author known for her 1961 Pulitzer-Prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which deals with the issues of racism that the author observed as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Despite being Lee's only published book, it led to her being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. Lee has received numeroushonorary degrees but has always declined to make a speech.

Nelle Harper Lee, the youngest of five children of Amasa Coleman Lee and

Frances Cunningham Finch,  was raised

in Monroeville, Alabama. Her first name, Nelle, was her grandmother's name spelled backwards. Her mother was a

homemaker; her father, a former newspaper editor and proprietor, practiced law and served in the 

Alabama State Legislature from 1926 to 1938. Before A.C. Lee became a title lawyer, he once defended two black men accused of

murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father and son, were hanged. As a child, Lee was a tomboy, a precocious reader, and best friends with her schoolmate and neighbor,

the young Truman Capote.

Published July 11, 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird was an immediate bestseller and won great critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. It remains a bestseller with more than 30 million copies in print. In 1999, it was voted "Best Novel of the Century" in a poll by the Library Journal.After completing To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee accompanied Capote to Holcomb, Kansas, to assist him in researching what they thought would be an article on a small town's response to the murder of a farmer and his family. Capote expanded the material into his best-selling book, In Cold Blood (1966).Since publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee has granted almost no requests for interviews or public appearances and, with the exception of a few short essays, has published nothing further. She did work on a second novel — The Long Goodbye — but eventually filed it away unfinished.[9]

 During the mid-1980s, she began a factual book about an Alabama serial murderer, but also put it aside when she was not satisfied.[9] Her withdrawal from public life prompted unfounded speculation that new publications were in the works.In June 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Lee to the National Council on the Arts.

“I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected.”—Harper Lee, quoted in Newquist, 1964

Presidential Medal of FreedomOn November 5, 2007, George W. Bush presented Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the highest civilian award in the United States and recognizes individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors".

WorksBookTo Kill a Mockingbird. (1960) New York: J. B. Lippincott.Articles"Love — In Other Words". (April 15, 1961) Vogue, pp. 64–65"Christmas to Me". (December 1961) McCall's"When Children Discover America". (August 1965) McCall's"Romance and High Adventure" (1983), a paper presented in Eufaula, Alabama and collected in 1985 in the anthology Clearings in the Thicket.Open letter to Oprah Winfrey (July 2006), O: The Oprah Magazine