Harper Lee passed away on February 19, 2016 at the age of 89 in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Lee’s first and, until last year, only book, To Kill a Mockingbird, was an instant sensation when it was published in 1960, earning her the Pulitzer Prize the following year. In 1962, it would be made into the now classic film starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, lawyer to falsely accused Tom Robinson and father to Scout Finch.

Last year, to some controversy, her novel Go Set a Watchman was published. Written prior to To Kill a Mockingbird and withheld by Lee for decades, it tells the story of Atticus and Scout at a point much later in their lives. Lee’s editor at the time urged her to write a novel based on the flashback scenes in Watchman, and that became To Kill a Mockingbird, according to NPR.

In 2007, Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she made a rare public appearance to accept the honor. William Grimes writes in the New York Times, “Ms. Lee gained a reputation as a literary Garbo, a recluse whose public appearances to accept an award or an honorary degree counted as important news simply because of their rarity. On such occasions she did not speak, other than to say a brief thank you.”

NPR included a comment of Lee’s from her last full interview, given to New York radio station WQXR more than fifty years ago: “I would like to be the chronicler of something that I think is going down the drain very swiftly. And that is small-town, middle-class Southern life. There is something universal in it. ... There’s something to lament when it goes, in its passing. In other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of South Alabama.”

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