“But he wanted to leap up, to say to her, I have been sick and I found out then, only then, how lonely I am. Is it too late? My heart puts up a struggle inside me, and you may have heard it, protesting against emptiness...It should be full, he would rush on to tell her, thinking of his heart now as a deep lake, it should be holding love like other hearts. It should be flooded with love. There would be a warm spring day...Come and stand in my heart, whoever you are, and a whole river would cover your feet and rise higher and take your knees in whirlpools, and draw you down to itself, your whole body, your heart too.("Death of a Traveling Salesman")”

American short-story writer, novelist, and photographer

Eudora Welty was an American short-story writer, novelist, and photographer who wrote about the American South. She is known for fiction that captures the region’s people, speech, and social life, and for a body of work that earned lasting recognition during her lifetime. Her novel The Optimist’s Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty also received major honors including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Order of the South. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America, and her house in Jackson, Mississippi, is a National Historic Landmark open to the public as a house museum.