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[[File: Kill a Mockingbird 2.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Harper Lee being awarded a Presidential Medal by President Bush]]

This remarkable work was written by Nelle Harper Lee (1926 – 2016), who grew up in Monroeville, Alabama. She was born into an affluent and well-connected family in the town. Lee after graduating from high school studied law in a desultory fashion for several years but never obtained a degree. Her real passion was literature and with the help of her father and friends she began to write the novel that would become ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. She submitted it to a publishing company, and she worked on it for a full three years before it was finally published in 1960. The book was an instant success and it became a bestseller and was immediately hailed by the critics as a masterpiece <ref>Johnson, Claudia Durst. Understanding To kill a mockingbird: a student casebook to issues, sources, and historic documents. ABC-CLIO, 1994 </ref>. The work is a classic example of the, the Southern Gothic genre, with dark and irrational elements and eccentric characters. Harper Lee was astonished by the success of her novel and soon withdrew from public life. Remarkably, for a first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. Harper Lee was showered by several Presidents with awards, over the years. However, she did not write another book. Lee stated that she had said what she wanted to say and that she found the pressure of success and fame too much. The author lived a quiet life and was true to her word. In old age, a book Go Set a Watchman (2015) was published. It was issued by her lawyer and it was very controversial. Many critics regard it as only an early draft of to Kill a Mockingbird and believe that the author was not mentally competent to give her permission for the work to be published. Harper Lee died at the age of 89 in an assisted living facility in Alabama. To Kill a Mocking bird was made into a memorable movie in 1962, starring Gregory Peck, Mary Bardham and Robert Duvall, and directed by Robert Mulligan. This won an Academy Award for best picture and is considered to be a classic. This movie is a faithful adaptation of the book, which is not always the case with Hollywood. In 2018, the novel was turned into a Broadway play, that was very popular with critics and audiences alike.

====Summary of the novel====