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Alabama literature includes the prose fiction, poetry, films and biographies that are set in or created by those from the US state of Alabama. This literature officially began emerging from the state circa 1819 with the recognition of the region as a state. Like other forms of literature from the South, Alabama literature often discusses issues of race, stemming from the events of slavery, the American Civil War, the Reconstruction era and Jim Crow laws and the US Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement was particularly influential on Alabama literature due to the Montgomery Bus Boycott taking place in the state, along with other significant events of the Movement.

Some of the most notable pieces of literature from this region include Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Winston Groom’s novel Forrest Gump and the 1994 film adaptation of the same name, and Fannie Flagg’s novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe and the 1991 film adaptation. The biographies of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. are also highly significant.

History

Georgia-born Augusta Jane Evans (1835-1909) moved to Mobile in 1849 and wrote many popular novels that incorporated aspects of her experience in Alabama.[1]

In 1960, Harper Lee, born in Monroeville, published perhaps the most celebrated novel set in Alabama, To Kill A Mockingbird.

Winston Groom authored the novel Forrest Gump which was made into the hit movie of the same name.

Pre-Civil War (1819-1861)

From the recognition of Alabama as a state in 1819 to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, this era of literature, like other forms of early literature emerging around the newly- United States contain strong themes of nationalism and discussions of race centered around slavery and the political unrest in the lead up to the Civil War. Notable works from this period include the works of Albert J Pickett, Alexander Beaufort Meek, Johnson J Hooper, and Caroline Lee Hentz.

Modern (late 19th to mid 20th century)

Displaying the conventions of Modernism found in literature throughout the Western world, literature in Alabama was also characterised by discussions of themes that were also seen throughout the South and other parts of the country. These themes included issues of race, in response to the Jim Crow laws of the late 19th century up to the mid 20th century and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, issues of gender, and issues of war, in response to the First World War, the Second World War, and the Vietnam War.

Fiction

Writing on early 20th century racism, Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel, Invisible Man, tells the story of an unnamed black man in a society that makes him invisible and an attempt to find his identity within that society.[2][3] The publication of this novel established Ellison as a major figure of Southern twentieth-century fiction and the novel won the American National Book Award.[2] Ellison would win the United States Medal of Freedom in 1969 and receive the National Medal of Arts in 1985.[2]

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) is widely recognised as the most influential work to come out of Alabama in all its literary history and is one of the most well-read novels in the English language.[4] The novel follows the young Scout Finch who is being raised along with her brother by their widowed father, Atticus. Throughout the book they are often treated as outsiders, leading to them bonding with others who felt like this, such as their neighbour Boo Radley. The central conflict of the novel is when Atticus defends a black man accused of rape.[4] Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama, in 1926,[4] and while her work was influenced by the larger events occurring across the state and country, the influence of three specific cases from her youth is recognisable in her work; firstly, the Scottsboro Boys case in 1931 to 1937 in northern Alabama involving black men accused of rape,[4] a case in Monroeville in 1933 with significant parallels to the case in To Kill A Mockingbird,[4] and the confrontation between her father, Amasa (the inspiration for the character Atticus), and members of the Klu Klux Klan outside their house in 1934.[4] To Kill a Mockingbird spent 98 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list,[4] and in 1961, Lee was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.[4] The film adaptation of the novel premiered in 1962 and would go on to win three Academy Awards.[4] Go Set A Watchman was published in 2015 after many issues with Lee’s health.

Joe David Brown’s novels were well known for drawing on his life, including his childhood in Birmingham, history as a journalist, and service in World War II.[5] His most famous work is the 1971 novel, Addie Pray, which follows 11 year old Addie and Long Boy, the man who might be her father, two con artists in the South.[6] The novel was adapted into the film Paper Moon, for which Tatum O'Neal became the youngest person to ever win an Academy Award.[5] His 1947 novel, Stars in My Crown, which was adapted into a film by the same name in 1949, and is based on Brown’s grandfather.[5] Brown also published The Freeholder in 1949, Kings Go Forth in 1956, and Glimpse of a Stranger in 1968.[5]

South To A Very Old Place, published in 1971, was written by Albert Murray, who grew up in Mobile, Alabama. South To A Very Old Place follows the personal pilgrimage of a Black intellectual man and contains highly political discussion of race and its relationship with the United States.[7][8]  

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Robert R. McCammon is best known for his horror novels and collection of short stories, published between 1978 and 1990, which include Baal, Bethany’s Sin, the Night Boat, They Thirst, Mystery Walk, Usher’s Passing, Swan Song, Stinger, The Wolf’s Hour, Blue World, and Mine.[9] McCammon has also published a Boy’s Life, a “sentimental novel in which the good end up happy and the bad unhappy in the young protagonist’s fictional Alabama hometown”.[9]

Now a cultural phenomenon, Forrest Gump was originally published as a novel in 1986 by Winston Groom, who also authored other novels, including Shrouds of Glory and Patriotic Fire, and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for his nonfiction work, Conversations with the Enemy.[10] Groom grew up in Mobile, Alabama, attended the University of Alabama, and served as a second lieutenant in Vietnam in 1965.[10] Forrest Gump was adapted to the screen and released in 1994 starring Tom Hanks, and would go on to gross more than $670 million globally at the box office and win six Oscars.[10] In both forms, the story follows Forrest Gump, an Alabama man with a below average IQ, throughout his life and his experiences of many significant events in US history, including the Vietnam War and the AIDS crisis.

Biography

The blind and deaf Helen Keller’s inspirational story is told in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, published in 1903.[11] Recounting her early life in Alabama, the autobiography features some of the most prominent events and figures in her life, including the disease that took her vision and hearing, and learning to communicate with Anne Sullivan.[11][12]

Published in 1998, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr, recounts the life of one of the most notable figures in the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr, including his childhood in segregated Alabama, his faith, family, and views on other notable figures of the time, including presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and other civil rights activists, such as Malcom X.[13]

In the autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story, written along with Jim Haskins and published in 1999, Rosa Parks, the woman best known for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery in 1955 and sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights Movement.[14][15] Parks discusses her very active role in the Civil Rights Movement as a larger event as well.

Contemporary (mid 20th century to present day)

Fiction

Mary Ward Brown, recognised as “one of contemporary Southern fiction’s most important writers”,[16] is known for her short story collections, Tongues of Flame and It Wasn’t All Dancing, that discuss issues of race, class, gender and age. Tongues of Flame, the 1986 collection that includes Good-Bye, Cliff, Let Him Live, Disturber of the Peace, and Fruit of the Season, was awarded the Pen/ Hemingway Award, the Lillian Smith Award, and the Alabama Library Association Award. Following the publication of It Wasn’t All Dancing, Brown also won the Harper Lee Award and the Hillsdale Award for Fiction.

Fannie Flagg’s much beloved Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe was published in 1987. Set in the 1930s, the novel discusses themes of friendship and loyalty through the account of the friendship between the lonely Cleo Threadgoode and the neurotic and fearful Evelyn Couch.[17] The film adaptation, Fried Green Tomatoes, was released in 1991, the script for which Flagg won the Scripters Award and was nominated for an Academy Award and the Writers Guild of America award.[18] Flagg also authored Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!  and A Redbird Christmas.

John Green’s first novel, published in 2005, Looking for Alaska, is a young adult novel that discusses a modern and youthful take on love, loss, and self-discovery, through the narration of Miles at a Birmingham boarding school and his friendships with his roommate, the Colonel, and Alaska,[19] and their struggles as young people in the 21st century American South. Looking for Alaska won the Michael L. Printz Award and the Teen’s Top 10 Award,[20] among others, and was adapted as a TV drama miniseries in 2019 starring Kristine Froseth and Charlie Plummer.

Marieke Nijkamp discusses highly contemporary issues relevant to a young American audience in her 2016 novel, This Is Where It Ends, which follows four teenagers minute- by- minute during a shooting in an Alabama high school.[21][22] Nijkamp was inspired to write the novel after a high-profile school shooting, and has said that "I wanted to understand the human stories of a school shooting. Writing This Is Where It Ends, and, specifically, writing it from four points of view, let me explore those stories." [21]

Awards and events

The Alabama Library Association launched its "Alabama Author Awards" in 1957 for fiction, nonfiction and poetry; honorees have included Gail Godwin, Ann Waldron, Kathryn Tucker Windham.[23] The Alabama Writers' Forum began in 1992.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ Emory Elliott, ed. (1991). Columbia History of the American Novel. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-07360-8.
  2. ^ a b c "Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison". www.penguin.com.au. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
  3. ^ Nast, Condé (2016-12-04). "Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" as a Parable of Our Time". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i author., Johnson, Claudia Durst, 1938-. Reading Harper Lee : understanding To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman. ISBN 978-1-4408-6127-7. OCLC 1017600014. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ a b c d "Joe David Brown". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
  6. ^ Rogers, Michael (August 2002). "Brown, Joe David. Paper Moon". Library Journal. 127: 154 – via Gale Academic OneFile.
  7. ^ Slaughter, Frank G. (1973). "Review of South to a Very Old Place". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 51 (3): 336–337. ISSN 0015-4113.
  8. ^ Morrison, Toni (2 January 1972). "South To A Very Old Place: by Albert Murray". New York Times. p. 230.
  9. ^ a b Staggs, Sam (2 August 1991). "Robert R. McCammon: a veteran of the horror genre has changed directions, after more than 10 books, with a novel set in the South". Publishers Weekly. 238 – via Gale Academic OneFile.
  10. ^ a b c Kurutz, Steven (2020-09-18). "Winston Groom, Author of 'Forrest Gump,' Dies at 77". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
  11. ^ a b "The Story of My Life by Helen Keller: 9780451531568 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
  12. ^ Kleege, G. "The Helen Keller Who Still Matters". Rartian. 24: 100–112 – via Proquest.
  13. ^ The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. 2017-06-27. ISBN 978-0-7595-2037-0.
  14. ^ "Rosa Parks: My Story by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins (1994)". Journal of Reading. 38 – via Proquest.
  15. ^ "Rosa Parks by Rosa Parks". www.penguin.com.au. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
  16. ^ Cherry, Kelly (October 2003). "Mary Ward Brown: art we cannot live without". Hollins Critic. 40, 4.
  17. ^ "Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg". www.penguin.com.au. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
  18. ^ "Fannie Flagg". www.penguin.com.au. Retrieved 2022-05-11.
  19. ^ Bennet, Sandra (2011). "Looking for Alaska". The School Librarian. 59.
  20. ^ author., Deakin, Kathleen,. John Green : teen whisperer. ISBN 978-1-4422-4997-4. OCLC 909369634. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  21. ^ a b "Spotlight on Marieke Nijkamp". Publishers Weekly. 264. 2017.
  22. ^ Spisak, April (2016). "This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp (review)". Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 69 (5): 265–265. doi:10.1353/bcc.2016.0083. ISSN 1558-6766.
  23. ^ Authors Awards Committee, Alabama Author Awards, Alabama Library Association, retrieved March 11, 2017 (List of winners)
  24. ^ "About". Montgomery, AL: Alabama Writers' Forum. Retrieved March 11, 2017.

Bibliography

  • Lucian Lamar Knight, ed. (1913). "Fifty Reading Courses: Alabama". Library of Southern Literature. Vol. 16. Atlanta: Martin and Hoyt Company. p. 181+. hdl:2027/uc1.31175034925258 – via HathiTrust.
  • Erwin Craighead (1914), Literary History of Mobile, OCLC 5058844, OL 6576822M
  • Elsie Dershem (1921). "Alabama". Outline of American State Literature. Lawrence, Kansas: World Company – via Internet Archive.
  • Federal Writers' Project (1941), "Literature", Alabama; a Guide to the Deep South, American Guide Series, New York: Hastings House, pp. 130–136, hdl:2027/uc1.b4469723 – via HathiTrust{{citation}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
  • G. Thomas Tanselle (1971). Guide to the Study of United States Imprints. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-36761-6. (Includes information about Alabama literature)
  • William T. Going. Essays on Alabama Literature. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1975.
  • Benjamin Buford Williams (1979). A Literary History of Alabama: the Nineteenth Century. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-2054-0.
  • William Stanley Hoole (1983). Alabama's Golden Literary Era. (Covers 1819–1919)
  • Philip Beidler, ed. The Art of Fiction in the Heart of Dixie: An Anthology of Alabama Writers. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1986.
  • Philip Beidler, ed. Many Voices, Many Rooms: A New Anthology of Alabama Writers. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998.
  • Lynda Brown; et al. (1998). "Antebellum Period, 1830-1860: Literature, Language and Folklore". Alabama History: an Annotated Bibliography. Greenwood Press. pp. 85–90. ISBN 978-0-313-28223-2.
    • Chapter: Confederate Period, 1861-1865: Literature, p. 129
    • Chapter: Late 19th Century, 1875-1900: Literature, Language, and Folklore, pp. 209–211
    • Chapter: Early 20th Century, 1901-1945: Literature, Language, and Folklore, pp. 262–265
    • Chapter: Late 20th Century, 1946-1996: Literature, Language, and Folklore, pp. 325–331
  • Taylor, Joe, and Tina N. Jones, eds. Belles' Letters: Contemporary Fiction by Alabama Women. Livingston, Ala.: Livingston Press, 1999.
  • Bert Hitchcock (2001). "Literature of Alabama". In Joseph M. Flora; Lucinda Hardwick MacKethan (eds.). Companion to Southern Literature: Themes, Genres, Places, People, Movements, and Motifs. Louisiana State University Press. pp. 24-30. ISBN 978-0-8071-2692-9.
  • Lamar, Jay, and Jeanie Thompson, eds. The Remembered Gate: Memoirs by Alabama Writers. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002.
  • Don Noble, ed. Climbing Mt. Cheaha: Emerging Alabama Writers. Livingston, Ala.: Livingston Press, 2004.
  • Walker, Sue Brannan, and J. William Chambers, eds. Whatever Remembers Us: An Anthology of Alabama Poetry. Mobile, Ala.: Negative Capability Press, 2007.
  • Don Noble, ed. A State of Laughter: Comic Fiction from Alabama. Livingston, Ala.: Livingston Press, 2008.


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