Nelle Harper Lee (born April 28, 1926) is an American novelist widely known for her novel
To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. It was immediately successful, winning the
Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern
American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on her observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old. The novel deals with the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race and class in the
Deep South of the 1930s, as seen through the eyes of two children. The novel was inspired by the racist attitudes she observed as a child in her hometown of
Monroeville, Alabama. Though Lee published only this single book for half a century, she was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. Lee has received numerous
honorary degrees, and declined to speak on each occasion. Lee assisted close friend
Truman Capote in his research for the book
In Cold Blood (1966).