Carson McCullers

She married an aspiring writer Reeves McCullers in 1937. The couple separated in 1940 and divorced in 1941. Carson and Reeves remarried in 1945.

She once attempted suicide when she was depressed. Some years later her husband convinced her to attempt suicide with him. But she fled while Reeves committed suicide.

She suffered from health problems throughout her life. She was partially paralyzed by the age of 31. She died of a brain hemorrhage in 1967.

She was born as the daughter of Lamar Smith, a watchmaker and jeweler, and his wife Vera Marguerite Waters.

As a little girl, She aspired to be a musician and her parents arranged for her to receive piano classes form the age of ten. She attended Columbus High School.

She traveled to New York City where she planned to study piano at the Julliard School of Music in 1934. However, she returned home and fell ill with rheumatic fever. The illness left her unable to pursue a career as a professional musician and she was forced to consider other professions.

She studied creative writing at night classes at Columbia University under the Texas writer Dorothy Scarborough.

She began writing seriously by her late teens. Her first published work was an autobiographical piece called ‘Wunderkind’ which was about a musical prodigy’s painful life experiences. The story first appeared in the December 1936 issue of ‘Story’ magazine.

For two years from 1935 till 1937, she divided her time between Columbus and New York in order to work on her studies and writing. She also worked at several odd jobs to support herself.

She published her debut novel ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ in 1940. The story revolved around a deaf man named John Singer and the various people he meets in a mill town. The novel was highly reviewed by critics and was also a huge commercial success.

The very next year, the novel ‘Reflections in a Golden Eye’ was released. The novel had first appeared in a serialized format in the October-November issues of the ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ in 1940. The book dealt with issues such as homosexuality, sadism and fetishism.

It took her five years to complete her next novel ‘The Member of the Wedding’ which was finally published in 1946. The plot revolved around the story of a 12 year old tomboy, Frankie Addams who feels disconnected from the world. The novel explores the psychology of the three main characters.

Her debut novel, ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ based on the story of a deaf man is considered a literary sensation. It was one of her works in which she represented the voice of the rejected, forgotten and oppressed. The novel was ranked among the list of the 100 best English language novels of the 20th century.