Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers

About Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers, born Lula Carson Smith, on February 19, 1917 in Columbus, Georgia, and died September 29, 1967 in Nyack, New York, was an American poet and writer. A leading novelist and short story writer, she published her first and only poetry collection Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig in 1964 by Houghton Mifflin: A collection of poems illustrated by Rolf Gérard. She gave up part of her name in 1930 to call herself Carson. She wrote her first short story, Sucker, at the age of 16. After studying at Columbia University, then at New York University, she published a short story entitled Wunderkind in 1936 and began working on her first novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, originally titled The Mute.
In 1937, she married Reeves McCullers and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where she completed The Mute, published under the title The heart is a lonely hunter in 1940: she was then 23 years old. The following year, in 1941, appeared a second novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye. In 1946, she published her third novel, Frankie Addams (The Member of the Wedding), met Tennessee Williams and traveled to Europe with her husband. Following health problems, she attempted suicide in 1947 and was hospitalized in New York. In 1952, she moved to France with her husband, in Oise, in Bachivillers. The following year, after her husband's suicide, she returned to the United States. Her fourth and last novel, The Clock Without Needles, was published in 1961.
She died on September 29, 1967 at 9:30 a.m. in Nyack hospital, after forty-five days in a coma, following a cerebral hemorrhage. She is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Nyack - New York.

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