A Southern Life

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786 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 28 photos

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-1373-4
Published: November 2013
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-1952-1
Published: February 2017
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-6488-8
Published: February 2017

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Awards & distinctions

1994 C. Hugh Holman Award, Society for the Study of Southern Literature

This exceptional collection provides new insight into the life of North Carolina writer and activist Paul Green (1894-1981), the first southern playwright to attract international acclaim for his socially conscious dramas. Green, who taught philosophy and drama at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1927 for In Abraham's Bosom, an authentic drama of black life. Among his other Broadway productions were Native Son and Johnny Johnson. From the 1930s onward, Green created fifteen outdoor historical productions known as symphonic dramas, thereby inventing a distinctly American theater form. These include The Lost Colony (1937), which is still performed today. Laurence Avery has selected and annotated the 329 letters in this volume from over 9,000 existing pieces. The letters, to such figures as Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, John Dos Passos, Zora Neale Hurston, and others interested in the arts and human rights in the South, are alive with the intellect, buoyant spirit, and sensitivity to the human condition that made Green such an inspiring force in the emerging New South. Avery's introduction and full bibliography of the playwright's works and first productions give readers a context for understanding Green's life and times.

Reviews

"The letters unfold like a strand of fine pearls, taking their place alongside other collected editions such as the Selected Letters of William Faulkner . . . in providing insights into the mind of a great artist and into the affairs of his region."--Journal of Southern History

"A living biography, justifying its title, A Southern Life. The book holds within its covers a rare degree of greatness."--Raleigh News & Observer

"Avery's selection of letters succinctly sums up the life of a literary southerner, portraying the man in his many roles as husband, father, artist, and activist. This multidimensional portrait spans the lifework of a Pulitzer Prize winner whose personal concerns mirrored the great changes occurring in the South . . . in the middle years of this century."--Booklist

"Laurence G. Avery's massive new volume . . . provides an excellent opportunity for a reconsideration of Green's place in the American theatre. . . . The spiritual strength and perseverance he maintained for more than 60 years, without becoming blind to the world's failings, makes [Green] a splendid teacher for our time."--American Theatre

"Avery's meticulously edited volume illuminates the career of an important American playwright who deserves far more attention than he has hitherto received. It also provides a fascinating portrait of the era in which Green lived and the often central role he played in changing the social and political fabric of his native South."--Jackson R. Bryer, University of Maryland at College Park

"Avery has placed the elements of Green's life in just proportion and given us not the obvious--an artist's life--but something more--a southern life. . . . Green's commitment to a special sort of virtue, his gentle but passionate rectitude, his energy, and his creative vitality are all extraordinarily telling."--Travis Bogard, University of California at Berkeley