Ann Petry

Ann Petry ( born October 12, 1908 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, † April 28, 1997 ibid ) is an American writer whose work is attributed to the so-called Afro-American literature. Although she has to have a thoroughly independent body of work, many critics count them mainly to school by Richard Wright.

Life

Ann Petry was as Ann Lane in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, was born, where her family for many years was the only black family the whole place was and should remain what particularly privileged position in comparison with the rest of the black population in the southern states or large cities of the North underlines. Her family, like the generations before Ann, successful pharmacists (her father received his license in 1880, as well as an aunt and an uncle ). So Ann grew up quite sheltered on as they learned neither race nor gender discrimination and her family was quite wealthy.

First, Ann Petry followed the family tradition and graduated in 1931 successfully graduated from the pharmaceutical faculty of the University of Connecticut from. She then worked for about seven years in the pharmacies of the family. However, even then they showed literary ambitions. In 1938 she married and moved to New York, where she was confronted during the Great Depression for the first time with the poverty and violence of the black population and their exploitation. She worked for two newspapers in Harlem, Amsterdam News and People's Voice. To present these experiences in literary form, Petry attended classes at Columbia University. In the 1940s Jahrenn their first stories in various magazines and her first novels, which, although highly praised, yet always stood in the shadow of Wright's works appeared. In 1948 she returned to Connecticut, where they raised a family, worked with young people and continued to write books.

Works (selection)

• Harriet Tubman. Conductor on the underground railroad. 8th Edition Pocket Books, New York, 1975, ISBN 0-671-50442-8 (former title: The girl named Moses).
• Link and Camilo ( " The Narrows "). Propylaea -Verlag, Berlin 1956.
• The road. Roman ( "The Street "). Ullsteinhaus, Frankfurt / M. 1982, ISBN 3-548-30130-4 ( The Woman in the literature ).
• Titubo of Salem village. Crowell Publ, New York 1964.