O'Connor, Flannery
Item
- Connection to Legacies of American Slavery Database
- Name
- One-line bio
- Biography
- Date of Birth
- Date of Death
- Wikidata Link
- Learn More About this Subject
-
O'Connor, Flannery
-
Flannery O'Connor was an American writer from the South known for her short stories, including "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" and "Everything That Rises Must Converge," and the namesake of the former Flannery O'Connor Hall at Loyola University Maryland.
-
Mary Flannery O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925 to a Catholic family in Savannah, Georgia. She completed her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Iowa. Her first novel, 1952’s Wise Blood, was a collection of stories originally published in various magazines. The topic of race in the South was a central theme in many of O’Connor’s stories, including "Everything That Rises Must Converge" and "Judgement Day.” While most of O’Connor’s writings depict the common bigot as foolish, her personal correspondence includes troubling statements on race and integration. In letters to playwright Maryat Lee, she wrote comments such as, "You know, I'm an integrationist on principle & a segregationist by taste anyway. I don't like negroes. They all give me a pain and the more of them I see, the less and less I like them." Many of her personal letters were not available to researchers until the past decade. Their accessibility has prompted intense debate on how to reconcile the racist private statements with her rich and complex body of published work. O’Connor died in 1964 at the age of 39, after a long struggle with lupus.
In 2008, Loyola University Maryland named a residence hall for Flannery O'Connor. In 2020, Flannery O’Connor Hall was renamed Thea Bowman Hall due to petitioning by students and the public for the removal of O'Connor's name.
-
March 25, 1925
-
August 3, 1964
Position: 732 (98 views)
