FLANNERY O'CONNOR was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1925. A devout Catholic, she lived most of her life on a farm in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she raised peacocks and wrote. She was the author of two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away; 31 short stories; and numerous essays and reviews. She died at the age of 39. Her complete short stories, published posthumously in 1971, received the National Book Award for fiction.