To Kill A Mockingbird is a novel written by American author Harper Lee. It was published on July 11, 1960, achieving instant success and acclaim. The story centers around a young girl growing up in Alabama during the 1930s. Loosely based on events and people from the author’s life, the fictional tale explores themes of racism in the Deep South, social injustice, and loss of innocence. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 as a distinguished work in fiction, and the novel was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film in 1962. Today, the novel is a cornerstone of American literature and required reading in many school curriculums. 

Author Nelle Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama, the town that inspired the setting for To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel, published in her thirties, was her only book until 2015 when she published Go Set a Watchmen, an earlier manuscript for To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee received numerous accolades for her contribution to literature and won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. She died peacefully in her sleep in 2016, but her legacy lives on in her gift to American literature.