HARRY CREWS
Typescript from HARRY CREWS PAPERS, MS 3340,
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Collection,
University of Georgia Libraries
Carleton Auditorium, University of Florida, Gainesville. ca. 1980,
Photo courtesy of Harry Crews
Fiction lecture, Audio file, Date unknown,
From HARRY CREWS PAPERS, MS 3340, Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book
& Manuscript Collection, University of Georgia Libraries
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In 1968 Harry Crews published THE GOSPEL SINGER, and in 2006 he published his 20th book, AN AMERICAN FAMILY: THE BABY WITH THE CURIOUS MARKINGS. Now retired from the University of Florida where he taught for thirty years, Crews often wrote as hard as he has often lived — “Like a house afire,” in his words. Nonetheless he has published two collections of essays and journalism in addition to his seventeen novels. He has also authored a play, BLOOD ISSUE, and his 1978 memoir A CHILDHOOD: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PLACE is considered by many to be an American masterpiece. A Depression-era tenant farmer’s son, Crews grew up “in the worst hookworm and rickets part of Georgia,” where “stories were conversation, and conversation was stories.” For the past forty years he has lived in Gainesville, Florida, and he intends to keep writing “until the curtain comes down.”
Harry Crews’ collection of manuscripts and personal correspondence is housed in the University of Georgia’s Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which submitted these materials. Thank you to Melissa Bass and Skip Hullet without whom this entry would not be possible.