(Edwin) DuBose Heyward

Writer, born in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. He first worked in a hardware store, then as a checker in a cotton warehouse. Although not African-American, he drew on the life of South Carolina African-Americans for much of his writing. He and his wife dramatized his first novel, Porgy (1925), and it was the basis for George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess (1935). He also wrote poetry and other fictional works.

DuBose Heyward (August 31, 1885 – June 16, 1940) was an American author best known for his 1924 novel Porgy. With his wife Dorothy, he was also co-author of the non-musical play adapted from the novel, which became the foundation of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. A descendant of Thomas Heyward, Jr., who was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of South Carolina, DuBose became a Charleston insurance and real-estate salesman with a long-standing and serious interest in literature, he became financially independent and abandoned his business to devote full time to writing.

Langston Hughes called Heyward one who saw, "with his white eyes, wonderful, poetic qualities in the inhabitants of Catfish Row that makes them come alive." Hutchisson characterizes Porgy as "the first major southern novel to portray blacks without condescension" and states that the libretto to Porgy and Bess was largely Heyward's work. Heyward and his wife Dorothy, who wrote the play version of Porgy, spent many years in Charleston, South Carolina scrutinizing the blacks of that area.

The non-musical play "Porgy" opened on Broadway in 1927, eight years before the opera Porgy and Bess, and was a considerable success - more so at the time than the Gershwin opera.

In Stephen Sondheim's introduction to DuBose Heyward in the book, "Invisible Giants - Fifty Americans Who Shaped the Nation But Missed the History Books" he wrote:

"DuBose Heyward has gone largely unrecognized as the author of the finest set of lyrics in the history of the American musical theater - namely, those of Porgy and Bess. Second, some of them were written in collaboration with Ira Gershwin, a full-time lyricist, whose reputation in the musical theater was firmly established before the opera was written. But most of the lyrics in Porgy - and all of the distinguished ones - are by Heyward.

The novel Porgy became a best seller in 1926 and Heyward continued to explore his love for writing after that with his novel also set in Catfish Row, Mamba's Daughters. Heyward also wrote the children's book The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes in 1939.