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"To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee dies at age of 89

Xinhua, February 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

Harper Lee, who wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird," one of America's literary classics, died Friday in Monroeville, Alabama, at the age of 89, her family confirmed.

"The family of Nelle Harper Lee, of Monroeville, Alabama, announced today, with great sadness, that Ms. Lee passed away in her sleep early this morning," said Lee's family in a statement. "Her passing was unexpected. She remained in good basic health until her passing. The family is in mourning and there will be a private funeral service in the upcoming days, as she had requested."

Lee's first novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," which was published in 1960, tells a story of a girl nicknamed Scout and her family who got caught up in a case of racial injustice in the U.S. South during Depression era. The novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction the next year, turned Lee into a literary celebrity. It was later made into a film of the same name.

The enormous success of the film version of the novel, released in 1962 with Gregory Peck starring the role of Atticus Finch, a lawyer from a small town in the South who defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, only added to Lee's fame and fanned the expectations for her next novel.

Lee surprised readers in February 2015, 55 years later with an announcement of HarperCollins, a publishing house. The publisher announced plans to publish a manuscript of Lee's, which was long thought to be lost, under the title "Go Set a Watchman."

In the first book, Atticus Finch was the adored father of his daughter, Jean Louise Finch or Scout, the narrator, and a lawyer who attempted to defend a black man unjustly accused of raping a white woman but failed in doing so.

In the "Watchman," which was published in July 2015, however, the author disheartened readers by portraying lawyer Finch as a racist who supports segregation.

Despite mixed reviews, the new book "Go Set a Watchman" remained atop the best-seller lists for months after its publication in 2015. Endit