The First Lady of Southern Literature
“All serious daring starts from within.”A recipient of 38 honorary doctorate degrees and more than 40 major literary awards, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, a master of short story writing, the first living writer to be published in the Library of America series, and even a renowned photographer, Eudora Alice Welty managed to pack a lot into her ninety-two years on this here Earth. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Welty was heavily influenced by her Southern upbringing and set the majority of her works in the American South. Regardless, Welty’s talent broke regional barriers, and she came to be one of the most respected and admired modern American fiction writers – all because of the humanity ever-present in her works. In addition to being able to effectively transcribe what it means to be human, she also produced a diverse portfolio, ranging from the grotesque and tragic to the light and humorous. Welty oftentimes used writing as a means of experimentation, and with that came criticism. But, she didn’t care, and I’m sure the Southern blood in her must’ve boiled at the thought of being merely one-dimensional.
In 1936, Eudora Welty’s short story entitled “Death of a Traveling Salesman” was published, and thus began her illustrious career. Her first book of stories, A Curtain of Green, was published just five years later in 1941. Later, in the 1960s, following years of traveling and writing, a few of Welty’s works appeared in The New Yorker. Her book of photographs, One Time, One Place, was published in 1971. In 1972, Welty was awarded the Gold Medal for Fiction and in 1973, she received the Pulitzer Prize for her The Optimist’s Daughter. In 1980, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States, by President Carter and three years later, in 1983, she delivered three William E. Massey Lectures to standing-room-only crowds at Harvard, which became One Writer’s Beginnings, a New York Times bestseller. In 1996, Welty received the French Legion of Honor Medal, and sadly, in 2001, Eudora Welty passed away in Jackson, Mississippi, where it all began. Her lifelong home is now a National Historic Landmark and public museum.
