Discover the Best Books Written by Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1925, the only child of Catholic parents. In 1945 she enrolled at the Georgia State College for Women. After earning her degree, she continued her studies in the University of Iowa's writing program, and her first published story, 'The Geranium,' was written while she was still a student. Her writing is best known for its explorations of religious themes and southern racial issues and for combining the comic with the tragic. 

After university, she moved to New York, where she continued to write. In 1952 she learned that she was dying of lupus, a disease that had afflicted her father. For the rest of her life, she and her mother lived on the family dairy farm, Andalusia, outside Millidgeville, Georgia. For pleasure, she raised peacocks, pheasants, swans, geese, chickens, and Muscovy ducks. She was a good amateur painter. She died in the summer of 1964.

O'Connor is primarily known for her short stories. She published two books of short stories: A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955), and Everything That Rises Must Converge (published posthumously in 1965). Many of O'Connor's short stories have been re-published in major anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories and Prize Stories.

O'Connor's two novels are Wise Blood (1952) (made into a film by John Huston) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960). She also has had several books of her other writings published, and her enduring influence is attested by a growing body of scholarly studies of her work.

Fragments exist of an unfinished novel tentatively titled Why Do the Heathen Rage? that draws from several of her short stories, including "Why Do the Heathen Rage?" "The Enduring Chill," and "The Partridge Festival."