Georgia author Carson McCullers has her debut novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter published on this day in 1940.
She is just 23 years old when this critically acclaimed debut brings her international recognition, propelling to the forefront of Southern writers.
The struggles of deaf mute John Singer is at the centre of the universe in this novel. Mick Kelly, the character McCullers makes her surrogate, is a young tomboy who dreams of a life of beauty, making music and playing the piano but gradually accepts the reality of a future working in a five-and-dime store.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has often been called the first Southern novel by a white writer to portray African Americans with as much humanity as their white counterparts. Dr. Benedict Copeland, an idealistic doctor, is brutally beaten after protesting the injustices his race faced in the South.
McCullers, born Lula Carson Smith, grew up in Columbus, Georgia and witnessed the depression and racial divide of segregation first-hand, living in a town where cotton mills were shutting down and workers, both African American and whites, struggled to maintain and better their lives.
