Fiction operates through the senses and I think one reason that people find it so difficult to write stories is that they forget how much time and patience is required to convince through the senses." BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYMore than thirty years after her death at age thirty-nine, Flannery O'Connor is considered one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Although she wrote just two short novels and about thirty stories, O'Connor's originality set her fiction …showed first 75 words of 1182 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1182 total…in Milledgeville on August 3, 1964, leaving behind a literary legacy that places her at the top of the list of great twentieth-century writers. O'Connor won first prize in the O. Henry Memorial Awards in 1957, 1963, and 1965; The Complete Stories won the National Book Award in 1972. FURTHER READINGS * American Scholar, Autumn, 1989, pp. 622+. * Baleé, Susan, Flannery O'Connor: Literary Prophet of the South, Chelsea House, 1995. * Christian Century, November 16, 1994, pp. 1076+. * New Republic, April 24, 1989, pp. 34+. * New York Review of Books, April 16, 1990, pp. 49+.