To Kill A Mockingbird Author Harper Lee Dies At Age 89

Famous author, Nelle Harper Lee, has died at the age of 89. Lee’s nephew, Hank Connor, reports that she passed away in her sleep on Friday at her assisted living center.

Lee, best known as Harper Lee, was most famous for her debut book, To Kill A Mockingbird, which was published in 1960 and earned Lee a Pulitzer Prize the following year.

To Kill A Mockingbird tells the story of racial injustice in an Alabama town. The story followed a black man who was falsely accused of raping a white women, and his lawyer, Atticus Finch, who serves as an American literary moral standard for many. To Kill A Mockingbird highlights the issues of race relations and legal injustice, narrated thought the eyes of a young child.

“This is a sad day for our family. America and the world knew Harper Lee as one of the last century’s most beloved authors,” Connor said in a statement Friday morning. “We knew her as Nelle Harper Lee, a loving member of our family, a devoted friend to the many good people who touched her life, and a generous soul in our community and our state. We will miss her dearly.”