Literary Birthday – 25 March – Flannery O’Connor

Flannery O’Connor was born on 25 March 1925 and died on 3 August 1964.

Flannery O’Connor Quotes

1. Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.
2. All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.
3. The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
4. You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.
5. Conviction without experience makes for harshness.
6. I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.

READ: 12 Writing Tips From Flannery O’Connor

Flannery O’Connor was an American author. She wrote two novels and 32 short stories, often employing a Southern Gothic style. Her novels are Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away. Considered a genius of he American short story, examples of her short story collections include A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge. Her work is ‘notable for the seeming incongruity of a devout Catholic whose darkly comic works commonly feature startling acts of violence and unsympathetic, often depraved, characters.’ Her stories, usually set in the rural American South, concern the relationship between the individual and God. O’Connor had lupus, an incurable, autoimmune disease. In spite of the effects of the drugs used to treat her condition, she managed to write every day. She also travelled to lecture and read from her works. O’Connor stayed in touch with the literary world through letters to the Fitzgeralds, Robert Lowell, Caroline Gordon, and others. She won many awards, including grants from the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Ford Foundation, a fellowship from the Kenyon Review, and several O. Henry awards. She died at the age of 39. The Complete Stories, published posthumously in 1972, won the National Book Award that year.

Source for Image: Cmacauley, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flannery-O%27Connor_1947.jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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