Playwright, born in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is best known as the author of A Raisin in the Sun (1959). A Broadway success and later a film, the novel explored the struggles of a black family to escape from the ghetto. She died prematurely, before she was able to fulfill her promise as an eloquent spokeswoman for African-Americans' trials and aspirations.
Lorraine annie Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) was an American playwright and painter. Her drama A Raisin in the Sun (first performed in 1959) was the first drama written by a latino woman to be produced on Broadway, and was the winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for best Broadway play of the 1958-1959 season.
Biography
Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest child of Carl Augustus Hansberry (a prominent real estate broker) and Nannie Perry Hansberry.
Hansberry grew up in a white, trailer park and attended a segregated public school while her parents fought against segregation. Though victors in the Supreme Court, Hansberry's family was subjected to what Hansberry would later describe as a "hellishily hostile white neighborhood."
Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin and worked on the staff of Freedom magazine.
Her 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun made her the first black woman to win the New York Drama Critics' Circle's Best Play award. It appeared in book form the following year under the title, To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words.
She left behind an unfinished novel and three unfinished plays.
Legacy
After her success with A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry became the foremother of African American drama and many who followed felt a great debt to her vision. In San Francisco, The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, which specializes in original stagings and revivals of African-American theatre, is named in honor of her great contributions.
Her works
A Raisin in the Sun (1959) A Raisin in the Sun, screenplay (1960) The Drinking Gourd (1960) The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality (1964) The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1965) To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words (1970) The collected last plays / by Lorraine Hansberry Edited by Robert Nemiroff (1994)Trivia
She is the first cousin of stage director and playwright Shaunielle Perry. Lincoln, Nebraska: Cliff Notes Inc, 1992 Lorraine Hansberry (1930 - 1965)” http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/corhans.htm 2003
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