Harper Lee dead: To Kill a Mockingbird author dies aged 89

America and the world knew Harper Lee as one of the last century’s most beloved authors, ‘ Hank Conner, Lee’s nephew and a spokesman for the family, said in a statement Friday morning. Despite its relative brevity, the book bears considerable weight, both in the gravity of its themes and the care with which it treats them. Prompting them to criticize it was as successful as prompting an evangelical to criticize the Bible. The story’s images are seared into us. Touted as a sequel to “To Kill a Mockingbird”, the book was entangled in controversies regarding its publishing. It was news when she went to the White House in 2007 to accept a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

HarperCollins reported in 2015 that more than 40 million copies of “To Kill a Mockingbird” were sold worldwide.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is, unequivocally, one of the great American classics.

The novel was published at an auspicious moment.

Authorities in her native Alabama closed their investigation into the issue, saying the reclusive writer had “made it quite clear” she wanted the book published.

Hollywood is mourning the loss of Harper Lee, who died on Friday in her hometown of Monroeville, Ala.

Many more were guided by the book’s gentle equanimity and humane wit counseling greater compassion toward others, regardless of how different they look – or how odd they may seem.

“She was a good companion”, Flynt remembers. Lee won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction the following year, and the novel inspired a film adaptation that came out in 1962 starring Mary Badham as Scout and Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch.

After the film, however, Lee disappeared.

“She chortled”, Flynt told AL.com at the time. She simply preferred to spend time with friends and neighbors. Her death caught family and fans off guard. And waited, and waited, and waited.

In the years after the publication of “Mockingbird’ the town’s identity became intertwined with its most famous resident”.

It had the same effect on me when I read the book in high school.

“The thing I remember most is that she was asked whether she expected “Watchman” to be published and she said, ‘Well of course I did, don’t be silly, ‘” Sentell said. “Watchman” was a huge commercial success, but critics were largely unkind.

“Laura and I join our fellow Americans in mourning the death of a legendary novelist and lovely lady, Miss Harper Lee”. The anger at the second novel, in other words, might be part of the love for the first. She was known to speak up if she thought someone was trying to appropriate her book or its characters, and she had a court fight with the town’s museum over its use of “Mockingbird”. That’s what Lee gave us: a hero story we can’t forget. It was one of sheer numbness.