Summary
"Petry is the writer we have been waiting for, hers are the stories we need to fully illuminate the questions of our moment, while also offering a page-turning good time. Ann Petry, the woman, had it all, and so does her insightful, prescient and unputdownable prose."--Tayari Jones, The Enthusiast, New York Times Book Review
THE STREET tells the poignant, often heartbreaking story of Lutie Johnson, a young black woman, and her spirited struggle to raise her son amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s. Originally published in 1946 and hailed by critics as a masterwork, The Street was Ann Petry's first novel, a beloved bestseller with more than a million copies in print. Its haunting tale still resonates today.
Ann Petry was born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut on October 12, 1908. She received a degree in pharmacy from the University of Connecticut in 1931. After working in the family business for three years, she wrote for the Amsterdam News and later for other publications. From 1944 to 1946, she studied creative writing at Columbia University. Her first novel, The Street, was published in 1946 and became the first novel by an African American to sell more than a million copies. Her other works include Country Place, The Narrows, The Drugstore Cat, Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad, and Tituba of Salem Village. She died on April 28, 1997 at the age of 88.
(Bowker Author Biography)
