Carson Mccullers

Carson McCullers (1917-1967) was born on February 19, 1917, in Columbus, Georgia. When she was 15, she suffered from rheumatic fever, which would contribute to chronic ill health throughout her life. After graduating from high school in 1933, McCullers sailed to New York with the intention of becoming a writer. She took creative writing courses at Columbia University and at Washington Square College of New York University. A respiratory infection forced her to return home in 1936, and while she was recuperating she published her first short story, “Wunderkind,” and began writing the novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, which established her themes of loneliness and isolation in small Southern towns.