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Katherine Anne Porter was born in Indian Creek,
Texas, in 1890. She grew up living in both Texas and
Louisiana. Her mother died when she was only two.
Her paternal grandparents raised her and educated
her in convent schools. She ran away from home to
marry when she was sixteen. She ended the marriage
to pursue an acting career. During this time she
contracted tuberculosis and upon her slow recovery
she turned to writing. Her writing was met with
more success than she found in acting. Porter earned
her living as a journalist in Chicago, Illinois, and
Denver, Colorado.
Between the years 1918 and 1921 she was a teacher
and a journalist in Mexico, the location of many of
her stories. She became involved in revolutionary
politics in Mexico. Her feelings toward Mexico,
however, were ambivalent. Sometimes her stories
express hope for the country, other times, as in
"The Fiesta of Guadalupe," she depicts Mexico as a
place of hopeless oppression for the native peoples.
In
1922 Porter published a study Outline of Mexican
Popular Arts and Crafts. She also contributed to
leftist journals, such as
The New Republic
and The Nation. At this time, her writings
were receiving more publication opportunities and
recognition. "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”
appeared in transition in 1929 and 'Flowering
Judas' was first published in the Hound and Horn
in 1930. Porter's first collection of short stories
was Flowering Judas. This collection
demonstrates her style of unique clarity.
Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider, published in
1939 won widespread critical acclaim. It consisted
of three short novels: 'Old Mortality', 'Noon Wine',
and
the title piece, which tells of a brief love affair
between a soldier and a young Southern
newspaperwoman during the influenza outbreak of
World War I.
Her
Collected Stories, published in 1965 earned
her the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Ship of Fools, Porter’s most beloved
work, was completed when Porter was 72. Ship of
Fools is an acrimoniously ironic novel
set in 1931 aboard a German passenger ship,
returning to Germany from Mexico. Through a
figurative use of characters, Porter considers the
origin of good and evil. In 1966, the novel
was made into an Oscar winning film.
Katherine Anne
Porter died in Silver Spring, Maryland on September
18, 1980.
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