Release date: May 3, 2007
Contact: Elaine Justice at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Emory to Stage Reading of Flannery O'Connor Letters

The distinctive Southern voice of the beloved writer Flannery O'Connor will once again come to life, in a theatrical reading at Emory University of letters O'Connor wrote to her friend Betty Hester. The free public event, set for Tuesday, May 22 at 6 p.m. in Cannon Chapel, celebrates this month's unveiling of the complete collection of the letters, which Hester donated to Emory's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library in 1987, with the stipulation that they remain sealed for 20 years.

Brenda Bynum, who taught at Emory's Department of Theater Studies until her retirement in 2000, will perform the reading. Bynum also was a resident artist for Theater Emory and has been honored as a "Lexus Leader of the Arts" by WABE, Atlanta public radio.

"As a native Georgian, with a life-long interest in Flannery O'Connor and her work, it is a privilege for me to do this," Bynum says. "These letters make her come alive, I mean you feel like she's sitting there with you."

To prepare, Bynum has been listening to recordings of O'Connor and said she will try to approximate the rhythms of her voice. "She was a down-home Georgia girl," Bynum says. "She doesn't sound like Judi Dench. She sounds like a Southern lady, and speaks in the distinct voice of her region."

Hester's correspondence with O'Connor began with a fan letter she wrote to the author after "A Good Man is Hard to Find" was published in 1955, and continued until O'Connor's death in 1964. In 1979, edited versions of some of the correspondence was published in "The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor," edited by Sally Fitzgerald. But very few eyes have seen the complete collection of O'Connor's letters in their unedited form.

"These letters are written to a personal confidant," Bynum says. "O'Connor lets her hair down and says what she thinks, including funny cracks about people who would come to visit. Delivery is everything in comedy and she was a great raconteur."

Related Information

Emory to Unseal Flannery O'Connor Letters

Emory University is one of the nation's leading private research universities and a member of the Association of American Universities. Known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities, Emory is ranked as one of the country's top 20 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

Subscribe to News@Emory RSS feeds for automatic updates of the latest news at Emory.

Back