1. Mississippi Literature

2. How MS Literary Heritage Got Started Oral Storytelling –Stories have been told orally for centuries. –Why? Mississippians mainly lived in small, rural communities. –Dialect (manner of speaking of the people in a particular locality) is frequently used in recorded stories. –Early stories included family or community gossip, family history, and legends (stories handed down through generations).

3. Use of History in MS Literature –Many stories are memories of the past focusing on family or community and its influence on its members –The MS experience includes a shared experience of slavery, racism, poverty, violence, and defeat.

4. A SENSE OF PLACE Concept referring to where a person has their roots and the experiences encountered in that place. Place has a powerful hold on writers’ imagination.

5. Changes in Society –The 20th century brought changes to MS. –The reason for MS literary wealth and power is due to accelerated social changes in the 20 th century. MS’s history and experience has always been tied to race. Race relations have influenced MS writers –Many MS authors flourished between WWI and WW2 such as Richard Wright, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Tennessee Williams.

6. EARLY WRITERS Influenced by the impact of slavery and the Civil War Tend to write about country life

7. MODERN WRITERS Recent writers were influenced by WW2, Civil Rights Movement, and Vietnam. Tend to write about urban life

8. Mississippi Authors

9. EUDORA WELTY Novels such as The Ponder Heart & The Optimist’s Daughter (Pulitzer Prize winner 1973) Short stories such as “Why I Live at the P.O.” & “A Worn Path” From Jackson

10. RICHARD WRIGHT Novels such as Native Son and his autobiography, Black Boy From Jackson

11. WILLIAM FAULKNER Novels such as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom! Absalom! Short stories such as “Old Man” & “Barn Burning” Nobel Prize winner Pulitzer Prize winner Hometown: Oxford “America’s Shakespeare”

12. WILLIAM ATTAWAY Novels such as Let Me Breathe Thunder & Blood on the Forge about the Great Migration of African-Americans Part of Harlem Renaissance Born in Greenville

13. MARGARET WALKER ALEXANDER Most well-known novel – Jubilee Professor at JSU

14. TENNESSEE WILLIAMS Plays include A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, & The Glass Menagerie Born in Columbus Many plays on Broadway Pulitzer Prize winner

15. WILLIE MORRIS Novels such as My Dog Skip & The Ghosts of Medgar Evers (made into the movie – Ghosts of Mississippi) Born in Yazoo City

16. MILDRED TAYLOR Novels such as Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry & Let the Circle Be Unbroken Born in Jackson Newberry Book Award winner

17. JOHN GRISHAM Novels such as A Time to Kill and The Firm (made into movies) Hometown: Southaven Served as a MS legislator from 1983 – 1990