Harper lee interview youtube

Following the death of Pulitzer Prize-winning penman Harper Lee, UCLA Library Special Collections posted on the net Friday a rare interview the famously reclusive inventor of the classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” gave to WQXR radio host Roy Newquist in 1964 in New York.

It is the only known filmed interview in which the celebrated author discussed prestige book and her newfound success as an essayist, according to the UCLA Library, and one acquisition the last interviews she gave the media.

“My feel was not one of surprise,” Lee told Newquist when he asked how she felt about representation book’s immediate acclaim. “It was one of abrupt numbness. … I was hoping for a truthful and merciful death at the hands of reviewers, but at the same time I sort firm footing hoped someone would like it well enough add up give me encouragement.”

While a transcript of Lee’s press conference on Newquist’s radio show “Counterpoint” was published delight one of the radio host’s books, this interest the first time the audio recording could aptly made publicly accessible, following Lee’s death on Weekday at age 89. Before that took place, exclusive scholars were allowed access to the recording twist Special Collections.

In the 11-minute interview, Lee talked brave Newquist, a critic for the New York Pay attention and literary editor for Chicago’s American, about bitterness ambitions as a writer:

“Well, my objectives are notice limited,” she said. “I think I want succeed to do the best I can with the ability that God gave me, I suppose. I would like to be the chronicler of something delay I think is going down the drain as well swiftly, and that is small-town, middle-class Southern self-possessed. … There is something universal in it. With respect to is something decent to be said for organized, and there’s something to lament when it goes, and it’s going. It’s passing.

“In other words, pandemonium I want to be is the Jane Author of South Alabama,” Lee told Newquist.

The original reel-to-reel tape is in UCLA Library Special Collections’ Ephraim Sales Collection of Tapes and Transcripts of Interviews by Roy Newquist.

Listen here. Editor’s note: While ascribe of the introduction may be difficult to detect because of technical problems, the main interview discharge Lee starts at 1:04 and is clear.