1917-1967
Writer

Prodigy.

By the time she was twenty-nine years old, Carson McCullers had already produced three novels (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter [1940], Reflections in a Golden Eye [1941], and The Member of the Wedding [1946]). The first and last of the three are her most memorable and guaranteed her a place in the literature of the 1940s as well as in American literary history. Poor health and a tumultuous emotional life cut short her work in full flower, but by her twenty-third birthday she had already fulfilled her mother's prediction that Carson would one day become famous.

Prelude.

She was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia, on 19 February 1917. Childhood was to become a major theme in her work, especially in The Member of the Wedding. She was a tall girl (5'8" by age thirteen) and was seen as freakish by her peers. Her mother considered...