Eudora Welty

Eudora Welty (1909-2001), American writer of novels and short stories set almost exclusively in the rural American South. She is noted for her subtle recreations of regional speech and thought patterns. Welty’s The Optimist's Daughter (1972), a novella (fictional work midway between a short story and a novel), won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In it a woman’s conflicted relationship with her father’s second wife leads her to reminisce about her parents’ marriage.

Born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Welty was the daughter of well-to-do parents who had moved to Mississippi from the North. She began college at Mississippi State College for Women (now Mississippi University for Women) in 1925, but received her B.A. degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1929. After a brief stint in graduate school at Columbia University, she gave up an aspiration for a career in advertising, claiming it was 'too much like sticking pins into people to make them buy things they didn't need.' After returning to Jackson, she began to write, publishing her first short story, 'Death of a Traveling Salesman,' in a small magazine in 1936.

Welty first gained critical acclaim with A Curtain of Green (1941). This collection of stories about Southern life demonstrated her extraordinary talent for expression of emotion and characterization through droll descriptions of eccentric behavior. Her exploration of the American South continued in the novella The Robber Bridegroom (1942), about a wealthy Southern planter’s daughter who is courted by a bandit.

After publishing a second collection of short stories, The Wide Net (1943), Welty completed her first full-length novel, Delta Wedding (1946). In this portrait of a Southern family, told from the perspective of a nine-year-old girl, Welty uses a family event to draw a large number of characters together. She then counterpoints the group dynamic and the girl’s interior monologue to depict human nature in rich detail. The novel Ponder Heart (1957), an often comic story of small-town life, includes one scene that epitomizes Welty's penchant for grotesque, almost surreal violence. A dim-witted character mistakenly suffocates his wife to death while tickling her as a thunderstorm rages outside.

Welty’s other short story collections include Music from Spain (1948); The Bride of Innisfallen (1955); a group of children’s stories, The Shoe Bird (1964); Losing Battles (1970); and The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (1980). The Eye of the Story (1978) compiles essays and criticism on the subject of writing. One Writer’s Beginnings (1984) is an autobiographical work about her decision to become a writer. Welty was awarded a National Medal for Literature in 1980 and a National Medal of Arts in 1987.