Editing Flannery O'Connor

{{short description|American writer (1925–1964)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2013}}
{{Infobox writer
|name         = Flannery O'Connor
|image        = Flannery-O'Connor 1947.jpg
|caption      = Flannery O'Connor in 1947
|birth_name   = Mary Flannery O'Connor
|birth_date   = {{birth date |1925|3|25 |mf=y}}
|birth_place  = [[Savannah, Georgia]], US
|death_date   = {{death date and age |1964|8|3 |1925|3|25}}
|death_place  = [[Milledgeville, Georgia]], US
| resting_place = [[Memory Hill Cemetery]], Milledgeville, Georgia<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/05/archives/flannery-oconnor-buried.html | title=Flannery O'Connor Buried| newspaper=The New York Times| date=August 5, 1964}}</ref>
|occupation   = {{hlist |Novelist |short story writer |essayist}}
|period       = 1946–1964
|genre        = [[Southern Gothic]]
|subject      = {{hlist |Morality |Catholicism |[[Grace (Christianity)|grace]] |[[transcendence (religion)|transcendence]]}}
|movement     = Christian realism
|notableworks = {{ubl
                |''[[Wise Blood]]''
                |''[[The Violent Bear It Away]]''
                |''[[A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories|A Good Man Is Hard to Find]]''
                }}
}}
'''Mary Flannery O'Connor''' (March 25, 1925{{snd}}August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.

O'Connor was a [[Southern literature|Southern writer]] who often wrote in a sardonic [[Southern Gothic]] style. She relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters, often in violent situations.  In her writing, an unsentimental acceptance or rejection of the limitations, imperfections or differences of these characters (whether attributed to disability, race, crime, religion or sanity) typically underpins the drama.<ref>{{cite book|author=Basselin, Timothy J. |date=2013 |title=Flannery O'Connor: Writing a Theology of Disabled Humanity|publisher=baylorpress.com }}</ref>

O'Connor's writing often reflects her [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] faith, and frequently examines questions of morality and ethics. Her posthumously compiled ''Complete Stories'' won the 1972 U.S. [[National Book Award for Fiction]] and has been the subject of enduring praise.

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==Early life and education==
[[File:Flannery oconnor home.jpg|thumb|[[Flannery O'Connor Childhood Home|O'Connor's childhood home]] in Savannah, Georgia]]

===Childhood===
O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in [[Savannah, Georgia]], the only child of Edward Francis O'Connor, a real estate agent, and Regina Cline, both of [[Irish Americans|Irish]] descent.{{sfnm |1a1=O'Connor |1y=1979 |1p=3 |2a1=O'Connor |2y=1979 |2p=233 |2ps=: "My papa was a real-estate man" (letter to [[Elizabeth Fenwick Way]], August 4, 1957) |3a1=Gooch |3y=2009 |3p=29}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.ie/regionals/goreyguardian/out-about/focus-on-flannery-oconnor-at-write-by-the-sea-38201264.html|title=Focus on Flannery O'Connor at Write by the Sea|website=independent|date=June 14, 2019 |language=en|access-date=2020-03-13}}</ref> As an adult, she remembered herself as a "pigeon-toed child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I'll-bite-you complex".<ref>{{harvnb|Gooch|2009|p=30}}; {{Cite journal |last=Bailey |first=Blake |title=Between the House and the Chicken Yard |journal=[[Virginia Quarterly Review]] |issue=Spring 2009 |pages=202–205 |url=http://www.vqronline.org/between-house-and-chicken-yard |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160602052313/http://www.vqronline.org/between-house-and-chicken-yard |archive-date=June 2, 2016 |url-status=live |mode=cs2}}.</ref> The [[Flannery O'Connor Childhood Home]] museum is located at 207 E. Charlton Street on Lafayette Square.

In 1940, O'Connor and her family moved to [[Milledgeville, Georgia]], where they initially lived with her mother's family at the so-called 'Cline Mansion,' in town.<ref>{{cite web |title=Andalusia Farm – Home of Flannery O'Connor |website=Andalusia Farm |url=http://andalusiafarm.org/ |access-date=March 4, 2016}}</ref> In 1937, her father was diagnosed with [[systemic lupus erythematosus]], which led to his eventual death on February 1, 1941.{{sfn|Giannone|2012|p=23}}  O'Connor and her mother continued to live in Milledgeville.{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|p=3}} In 1951, they moved to Andalusia Farm,<ref>{{cite web|title=Flannery O'Connor|url=http://andalusiafarm.org/flannery-oconnor-2/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160417201404/http://andalusiafarm.org/flannery-oconnor-2/|archive-date=April 17, 2016|access-date=May 12, 2016|website=Andalusia Farm}}</ref> which is now a museum dedicated to O'Connor's work.

===Schooling===
O'Connor attended Peabody High School, where she worked as the school newspaper's art editor and from which she graduated in 1942.{{sfn|Gooch|2009|p=76}} She entered Georgia State College for Women (now [[Georgia College & State University]]) in an accelerated three-year program and graduated in June 1945 with a [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] in sociology and English literature. While at Georgia College, she produced a significant amount of cartoon work for the student newspaper.{{r|Wild (2011)|Heintjes (2014)}} Many critics have claimed that the idiosyncratic style and approach of these early cartoons shaped her later fiction in important ways.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/07/06/flannery-oconnor-cartoonist/|title=Flannery O'Connor, Cartoonist|last=Moser|first=Barry|date=2012-07-06|website=The New York Review of Books|language=en|access-date=2019-03-12}}</ref>{{sfn|Gooch|2009}}

[[File:Robie with Flannery 1947.jpg|thumb|O'Connor with [[Arthur Koestler]] (left) and [[Robie Macauley]] on a visit to the [[Amana Colonies]] in 1947]]
In 1945, she was accepted into the prestigious [[Iowa Writers' Workshop]] at the [[University of Iowa]], where she went, at first, to study journalism. While there, she got to know several important writers and critics who lectured or taught in the program, among them [[Robert Penn Warren]], [[John Crowe Ransom]], [[Robie Macauley]], [[Austin Warren (scholar)|Austin Warren]] and [[Andrew Nelson Lytle|Andrew Lytle]].{{r|Gordon}} Lytle, for many years editor of the ''[[Sewanee Review]]'', was one of the earliest admirers of her fiction. He later published several of her stories in the ''Sewanee Review'', as well as critical essays on her work. Workshop director [[Paul Engle]] was the first to read and comment on the initial drafts of what would become ''[[Wise Blood]]''. She received an [[Master of Fine Arts|M.F.A.]] from the University of Iowa in 1947.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|1965|p=xii}} After completing her degree, she remained at the Iowa Writers' Workshop for another year on a fellowship.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://litcity.lib.uiowa.edu/person/flannery-oconnor/ | title=LitCity }}</ref> During her time at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she dropped the name Mary, which gave her the impression of an "Irish washwoman", and became Flannery O'Connor.<ref name="Elie#" /> During the summer of 1948, O'Connor continued to work on ''Wise Blood'' at [[Yaddo]], an artists' community in [[Saratoga Springs, New York]], where she also completed several short stories.{{sfn|Gooch|2009|pp=146–52}}

In 1949, O'Connor met and eventually accepted an invitation to stay with [[Robert Fitzgerald]] (a well-known translator of the classics) and his wife, Sally, in [[Ridgefield, Connecticut]].{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|p=4}}

==Career==
O'Connor is primarily known for her short stories. She published two books of short stories: ''[[A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories|A Good Man Is Hard to Find]]'' (1955) and ''[[Everything That Rises Must Converge]]'' (published posthumously in 1965).  Many of O'Connor's short stories have been re-published in major anthologies, including ''[[The Best American Short Stories]]'' and ''[[Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards.|Prize Stories]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Farmer |first=David |title=Flannery O'Connor: A Descriptive Bibliography |publisher=Garland Publishing |date=1981 |location=New York}}</ref>

O'Connor's two novels are ''[[Wise Blood]]'' (1952) (made into a [[Wise Blood (film)|film]] by [[John Huston]]) and ''[[The Violent Bear It Away]]'' (1960). 

Fragments exist of an unfinished O'Connor novel tentatively entitled ''Why Do the Heathen Rage?'' The unfinished novel draws from several of her short stories, including "Why Do the Heathen Rage?", "The Enduring Chill", and "[[The Partridge Festival]]".<ref>{{Cite web |title=After a decade's work, scholar brings Flannery O'Connor's unfinished novel to light |url=https://www.detroitcatholic.com/news/after-a-decades-work-scholar-brings-flannery-oconnors-unfinished-novel-to-light |access-date=2025-03-25 |website=Detroit Catholic |language=en-US}}</ref>

From 1956 through 1964, she wrote more than one hundred book reviews for two Catholic diocesan newspapers in Georgia: ''The Bulletin'' and ''The Southern Cross''.{{sfn|O'Connor|2008|p=3}} According to fellow reviewer Joey Zuber, the wide range of books she chose to review demonstrated that she was profoundly intellectual.{{sfn|Martin|1968}}{{page needed|date=May 2016}} Her reviews consistently confronted theological and ethical themes in books written by the most serious and demanding theologians of her time.{{sfn|O'Connor|2008|p=4}} Professor of English Carter Martin, an authority on O'Connor's writings, notes simply that her "book reviews are at one with her religious life".{{sfn|O'Connor|2008|p=4}} 

===Characteristics===
Regarding her emphasis of the grotesque, O'Connor said: "[A]nything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case, it is going to be called realistic."{{sfn|O'Connor|1969|p=40}} Her fiction is usually set in the South{{r|Enniss (2007)}} and features morally flawed protagonists who frequently interact with characters with disabilities or are disabled themselves (as O'Connor was by lupus). The issue of race often appears. Most of her works feature disturbing elements, although she did not like to be characterized as cynical. "I am mighty tired of reading reviews that call ''A Good Man'' brutal and sarcastic," she wrote.{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|p=90}} "The stories are hard, but they are hard, because there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism.  When I see these stories described as horror stories, I am always amused, because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror."{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|p=90}}

She felt deeply informed by the sacramental and by the [[Thomist]] notion that the created world is charged with God. For her, God was a given of experience, not a mere intuition of the mind or spirit. When [[Mary McCarthy (author)|Mary McCarthy]] told her that she considered the [[Eucharist]] only a "symbol, and a pretty good one", O'Connor completely disagreed, saying: "Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Letters. Mary McCarthy, Aquinas, Hitler, et al. |url=https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/letters-mary-mccarthy-aquinas-hitler-et-al |website=Commonweal |date=26 January 2018 |access-date=27 March 2025}}</ref> Yet, she did not write [[apologetic]] fiction of the kind prevalent in the Catholic literature of the time, explaining that a writer's meaning must be evident, in his or her fiction, without [[didacticism]]. She wrote ironic, subtly allegorical fiction about deceptively backward Southern characters, usually [[Christian fundamentalism|fundamentalist Protestants]], who undergo transformations of character that, to her thinking, brought them closer to the Catholic mind. The transformation is often accomplished through pain, violence, and ludicrous behavior in the pursuit of the holy. However grotesque the setting, she tried to portray her characters as open to the touch of [[divine grace]]. This ruled out a sentimental understanding of the stories' violence, as of her own illness. She wrote: "Grace changes us, and the change is painful."{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|p=307}}

She had a deeply sardonic sense of humor, often based on the disparity between her characters' limited perceptions and the extraordinary fate awaiting them. Another frequent source of humor is the attempt of well-meaning liberals to cope with the rural South on their own terms. O'Connor used such characters' inability to come to terms with disability, race, poverty, and fundamentalism, other than in sentimental illusions, to illustrate her view that the [[Secularism|secular world]] was failing in the twentieth century.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

In several stories, O'Connor explored a number of contemporary issues from the perspective of both her fundamentalist and liberal characters. She addressed [[the Holocaust]] in her story "[[The Displaced Person]]", [[racial integration]] in "[[Everything That Rises Must Converge (short story)|Everything That Rises Must Converge]]", and [[intersex]]uality, in "[[A Temple of the Holy Ghost]]". Her fiction often included references to the problem of race in the South. Occasionally, racial issues come to the forefront, as in "[[The Artificial Nigger]]", "Everything that Rises Must Converge", and "[[Judgement Day (short story)|Judgement Day]]" (her last short story, which was a drastically rewritten version of her first published story, "[[The Geranium]]").{{cn|date=March 2025}} 

Despite her secluded life, her writing reveals an uncanny grasp of the nuances of human behavior. O'Connor gave many lectures on faith and literature, traveling quite far despite her frail health. Politically, she maintained a broadly progressive outlook in connection with her faith; she voted for [[John F. Kennedy]] in 1960 and outwardly supported the work of [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] and the civil rights movement.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Spivey |first1=Ted R. |title=Flannery O'Connor: The Woman, the Thinker, the Visionary |date=1997 |publisher=Mercer University Press |page=60}}</ref> Despite this, she made her personal stance on race and integration known throughout her life in several letters to playwright [[Maryat Lee]] (which she wrote under the pseudonym "Mrs Turpin"). In one such letter, she said, "You know, I'm an integrationist, by principle, and a segregationist, by taste.  I don't ''like'' negroes. They all give me a pain, and the more of them I see, the less and less I like them. Particularly the new kind".<ref name="Elie#">{{Cite magazine |last=Elie |first=Paul |date=June 15, 2020 |title=How racist was Flannery O'Connor? |magazine=The New Yorker |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/22/how-racist-was-flannery-oconnor |access-date=September 10, 2023}}</ref> According to O'Connor biographer, [[Brad Gooch]], there are also "letters where she even talks about a friend that she makes in graduate school at the University of Iowa who is black, and she defends this friendship to her own mother, in letters. It's complicated to look at, and I don't think that we can box her in".<ref>{{Cite news |title='Acid humour was a big part': the life and legacy of Flannery O'Connor |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/may/08/flannery-oconnor-movie-maya-ethan-hawke |date=8 May 2024 |last=Smith |first=David |work=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=14 May 2024}}</ref>

===Letters===
Throughout her life, O'Connor maintained a wide correspondence{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|pp=''xii''–''xiv'', ''xvi'', ''xvii''}} with writers that included [[Robert Lowell]] and [[Elizabeth Bishop]],{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|ps=&nbsp;''passim''.}} English professor [[Samuel Ashley Brown]],{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|ps=&nbsp;''passim''.}} Catholic nun and literary critic [[M. Bernetta Quinn]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ripatrazone |first=Nick |date=27 July 2018 |title=The Nun Who Wrote Letters to the Greatest Poets of Her Generation |url=https://lithub.com/the-nun-who-wrote-letters-to-the-greatest-poets-of-her-generation/ |website=Literary Hub |language=}}</ref> and playwright [[Maryat Lee]].<ref>{{harvnb|O'Connor|1979|p=193}}: "There are no other letters among Flannery's like those to Maryat Lee, none so playful and so often slambang."</ref> After her death, a selection of her letters, edited by her friend Sally Fitzgerald, was published as ''The Habit of Being''.{{r|Young (2007)}}{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|ps=&nbsp;''passim''.}} Much of O'Connor's best-known writing on religion, writing, and the South is contained in these and other letters.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

In 1955, [[Betty Hester]], an Atlanta file clerk, wrote O'Connor a letter, expressing admiration for her work.{{r|Young (2007)}} Hester's letter drew O'Connor's attention,<ref>{{harvnb|O'Connor|1979|p=90}}: "You were very kind to write me and the measure of my appreciation must be to ask you to write me again. I would like to know who this is who understands my stories."</ref> and they corresponded frequently.{{r|Young (2007)}} For ''The Habit of Being'', Hester provided Fitzgerald with all the letters she received from O'Connor but requested that her identity be kept private. She was identified only as "A."{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|p=90}} The complete collection of the unedited letters between O'Connor and Hester was unveiled by [[Emory University]] in May 2007. The letters had been given to the university in 1987 with the stipulation that they not be released to the public for 20 years.{{r|Young (2007)|Enniss (2007)}}

Emory University also contains the more than 600 letters O'Connor wrote to her mother, Regina. O'Connor wrote to her mother nearly every day while she was pursuing her literary career in Iowa City, New York, and Massachusetts. Some of her letters describe "travel itineraries and plumbing mishaps, ripped stockings and roommates with loud radios," as well as her request for the homemade mayonnaise of her childhood.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://lithub.com/flannery-oconnors-two-deepest-loves-were-mayonnaise-and-her-mother/|title=Flannery O'Connor's Two Deepest Loves Were Mayonnaise and Her Mother|last=McCoy|first=Caroline|date=May 17, 2019|website=Literary Hub}}</ref>

==Visual arts==
O'Connor was an avid cartoonist and painter, "I don't know how to write," she once said. "But I can draw." In 2023, two barrels full of paintings on wood tile by O'Connor were discovered, hidden it was thought by her trustees who were worried it would distract from her fame as a writer.<ref>{{cite web |last=Mimms |first=Walker |title=Sprung From the Attic, Flannery O'Connor's Artworks See the Light |date=March 20, 2025 |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/arts/design/flannery-oconnors-paintings-georgia-college.html }}</ref>

==Personal life==
===Catholicism===
O'Connor was a devout Catholic.{{sfn|O'Connor|2008|p=3}} A prayer journal O'Connor had kept during her time at the University of Iowa was published in 2013.{{r|Robinson (2013)}} It included prayers and ruminations on faith, writing, and O'Connor's relationship with God.{{r|Cep (2013)|Robinson (2013)|New Yorker (2013)}} O'Connor was an avid reader of [[Christian existentialism|Christian existentialist]] philosophers such as [[Gabriel Marcel]], considering herself "a Catholic peculiarly possessed of the modern consciousness", and thinking that the South was "Christ-haunted".<ref name="Elie#" />

===Interest in birds===
O'Connor frequently used bird imagery within her fiction.

O'Connor kept [[Chicken|chickens]] and [[Domestic canary|canaries]] at her childhood home in Savannah.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wiering |first=Maria |title=Flannery O'Connor's 100th birthday parties celebrate author's quirks, talents — and love of birds |url=https://www.ncronline.org/culture/flannery-oconnors-100th-birthday-parties-celebrate-authors-quirks-talents-and-love-birds |access-date=2025-03-29 |website=National Catholic Reporter |language=en}}</ref> When she was six, O'Connor experienced her first brush with celebrity status. [[Pathé News]] filmed "Little Mary O'Connor" with O'Connor and her trained [[chicken]]<ref>{{cite AV media |people=O'Connor, Flannery |date=1932 |title=Do You Reverse? |medium=Motion picture |publisher=Pathé |url=http://www.britishpathe.com/video/do-you-reverse-1/}}</ref> and showed the film around the country. She said: "When I was six I had a chicken that walked backward and was in the Pathé News. I was in it too with the chicken. I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been an anticlimax."{{sfn|O'Connor|Magee|1987|p=38}} According to writer and critic Catherine Taylor, the "determined chicken, walking backwards to go forward, is a tempting metaphor for O'Connor's own endurance. It instilled in her a 'love affair' with birds that seemed to transcend most human interactions".<ref>{{Cite news |title=Flannery O'Connor at 100: should we still read her? |last=Taylor |first=Catherine |work=The Guardian |url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/25/so-much-more-than-southern-gothic-flannery-oconnor-at-100 |date=25 March 2025 |access-date=28 March 2025}}</ref>

In high school, when the girls were required to sew Sunday dresses for themselves, O'Connor sewed a full outfit of underwear and clothes to fit her pet duck and brought the duck to school to model it.<ref>{{cite book|author=Basselin, Timothy J. |date=2013 |title=Flannery O'Connor: Writing a Theology of Disabled Humanity|publisher=baylorpress.com |page=9}}</ref>

As an adult at Andalusia, she raised and nurtured some 100 [[peafowl]]. Fascinated by birds of all kinds, she raised ducks, ostriches, emus, toucans, and any sort of exotic bird she could obtain, while incorporating peacock imagery in her writing. She described her peacocks in an essay titled "The King of the Birds". O'Connor often used peacocks as symbolism in her writing. The birds are thought to represent divine beauty and mystery, connecting to her spirituality and belief in living reminders of the unexpected, mysterious ways grace appears in the world.
===Illness and death===
[[File:Andalusia (farmhouse); Milledgeville, Georgia; January 29, 2011.jpg|thumb|left|Andalusia Farm, where O'Connor lived from 1952 until her 1964 death]]

By the summer of 1952, O'Connor was diagnosed with [[systemic lupus erythematosus]] (lupus),{{sfn|O'Connor |1979 |p=40 |ps=&nbsp;(letter to Sally Fitzgerald, undated, summer 1952)}} as her father had been before her.{{sfn|Giannone|2012|p=23}} She remained at [[Andalusia (Milledgeville, Georgia)|Andalusia]] for the rest of her life.{{r|Gordon}} O'Connor lived for twelve years after her diagnosis, which was seven years longer than expected.{{cn|date=March 2025}} Her daily routine was to attend Mass, write in the morning, then, spend the rest of the day recuperating and reading. Despite the debilitating effects of the steroid drugs used to treat O'Connor's lupus, she nonetheless made over sixty appearances at lectures to read her works.{{r|Gordon}} In the PBS documentary ''[[Flannery (film)|Flannery]]'', the writer [[Alice McDermott]] explains the impact lupus had on O'Connor's work, saying, "It was the illness, I think, which made her the writer she is".<ref>{{Citation|title=American Masters {{!}} Flannery {{!}} Season 35|url=https://www.pbs.org/video/flannery-mxhspu/|language=en|access-date=2021-06-16}}</ref> 

O'Connor completed more than two dozen short stories and two novels while living with lupus. "The wolf, I'm afraid, is inside tearing up the place", she wrote to her friend Sister [[Mariella Gable]] just few weeks before her death.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Happy Hundredth Birthday, Flannery O'Connor! |url= https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/03/25/happy-hundredth-birthday-flannery-oconnor/ |last=Quatro |first=Jamie |author-link=Jamie Quatro |website=[[The Paris Review]] |access-date=28 March 2025 |date=25 March 2025}}</ref> She died on August 3, 1964 at the age of 39 in Baldwin County Hospital.{{r|Gordon}} Her death was caused by complications from a new attack of lupus, following surgery for a [[uterine fibroid]].{{r|Gordon}} She is buried in Milledgeville, Georgia,{{sfn|Fitzgerald|1965|p=viii}} at [[Memory Hill Cemetery]].

==Legacy, awards, and tributes==
O'Connor's ''Complete Stories'' won the 1972 U.S. [[National Book Award for Fiction]]{{r|National Book Awards 1972}} and, in a 2009 online poll, was named the best book ever to have won the National Book Awards.{{r|Itzkoff (2009)}}

In June 2015, the [[United States Postal Service]] honored O'Connor with a new postage stamp, the 30th issuance in the Literary Arts series.{{r|USPS (2015)}} Some criticized the stamp as failing to reflect O'Connor's character and legacy.{{r|Downes (2015)|FSG (2015)}}

The [[Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction]], named in honor of O'Connor by the [[University of Georgia Press]], is a prize given annually since 1983 to an outstanding collection of short stories.{{r|FOA Winners}}

The Flannery O'Connor Book Trail is a series of [[Little Free Libraries]] stretching between O'Connor's homes in Savannah and Milledgeville.{{r|Lebos (2014)}}

The [[Flannery O'Connor Childhood Home]] is a historic house museum in Savannah, Georgia, where O'Connor lived during her childhood.{{r|Childhood Home}} In addition to serving as a museum, the house hosts regular events and programs.{{r|Childhood Home}}

[[Loyola University Maryland]] had a student dormitory named for O'Connor. In 2020, Flannery O'Connor Hall was renamed in honor of activist Sister [[Thea Bowman]]. The announcement also mentions, "This renaming comes after recent recognition of Flannery O'Connor, a 20th century Catholic American writer, and the racism present in some of her work."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Quigley |first1=Kaitlin |title=Loyola Renames Flannery O'Connor Hall After Sister Thea Bowman|url=https://thegreyhound.org/site/2020/07/24/loyola-renames-flannery-oconnor-hall-after-sister-thea-bowman/ |website=The Greyhound |date=July 24, 2020 |access-date=23 March 2021}}</ref>

The ''Flannery List'', named after O'Connor is a curated list of musicals and plays that ""deal in an interesting way with faith, religion, and/or spirituality."<ref>    {{cite web |url= https://www.americantheatre.org/2021/10/05/flannery-short-list-of-faith-related-plays-includes-2-by-guirgis-hall/|title= Flannery Short List of Faith-Related Plays Includes 2 by Guirgis, Hall/ |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= 5 October 2021|website= American Theatre|publisher= Theatre Communications group|access-date= 20 October 2024 |quote=}}</ref>

The film, ''Flannery: The Storied Life of the Writer from Georgia''<ref>''Flannery: The Storied Life of the Writer from Georgia.''Directed by Mark Bosco, SJ and Elizabeth Coffman. USA: Long Distance Productions in association with American Masters, 2020.</ref> has been described as the story of a writer "who wrestled with the greater mysteries of existence."<ref>Moran, Daniel. Review of ''Flannery: The Storied Life of the Writer from Georgia'' dir. by Mark Bosco, SJ and Elizabeth Coffman. ''American Catholic Studies'' 132, no. 4 (2021): 47-50.
</ref>

In 2023, the biographical film ''[[Wildcat (2023 film)|Wildcat]]'' was released.  Co-written and directed by [[Ethan Hawke]] and starring his daughter as Flannery O'Connor, the film features a dramatization of O'Connor trying to publish ''Wise Blood,'' interspersed with scenes from her short fiction.<ref>{{Citation |last=Hawke |first=Ethan |title=Wildcat |date=2023-09-01 |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26442871/?ref_=nm_flmg_c_1_dr |type=Biography, Drama |access-date=2023-10-23 |others=Laura Linney, Philip Ettinger, Rafael Casal |publisher=Good Country Pictures, Kingdom Story Company, Renovo Media Group}}</ref>{{rs|date=April 2025}}
But it's a film that O'Connor scholar Bruce Gentry says, "has five hundred factual errors."<ref name="Bethea">{{cite magazine |last1=Bethea |first1=Charles |title=Georgia Postcard Hard to Find |magazine=The New Yorker |date=March 31, 2025 |page=8}}</ref>

In May 2023, about two dozen small paintings O'Connor had done in her youth were found in the attic of the 200-year-old Milledgeville mansion where she had lived between the ages of eight and twenty-one. In March 2025 they were displayed at
Georgia College & State University.<ref name="Bethea" />

In 2024, O'Connor's unfinished novel ''Why Do the Heathen Rage?'' was published by Brazos Press. Jessica Hooten Wilson assembled scenes from O'Connor's drafts and supplied her own critical commentary.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Emerson |first=Bo |date=2024-01-17 |title=Assembling the pieces of Flannery O'Connor's incomplete last novel |url=https://www.arcamax.com/entertainment/entertainmenttoday/s-3066869 |access-date=2024-01-19 |website=ArcaMax |language=en}}</ref>

==Works==
{{main|Flannery O'Connor bibliography}}

===Novels===
* ''[[Wise Blood]]'' (1952)
* ''[[The Violent Bear It Away]]'' (1960)
* ''Why Do The Heathen Rage'' (unfinished; published 2024)

===Short story collections===
* ''[[A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories]]'' (1955)
* ''[[Everything That Rises Must Converge]]'' (1965)
* ''[[The Complete Stories (O'Connor)|The Complete Stories]]'' (1971)

===Other works===
* ''Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose'' (1969)
* ''The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor'' (1979)
* ''The Presence of Grace: and Other Book Reviews'' (1983)
* ''Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works'' (1988)
* ''Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons'' (2012)
* ''A Prayer Journal'' (2013)

==See also==

*[[Southern United States literature]]

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist
|refs=
<ref name="Cep (2013)">
  {{cite magazine
  |last = Cep
  |first = Casey N.
  |title = Inheritance and Invention: Flannery O'Connor's Prayer Journal
  |date = November 12, 2013
  |magazine = [[The New Yorker]]
  |url = https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/inheritance-and-invention-flannery-oconnors-prayer-journal
  |access-date = May 17, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160514101433/http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/inheritance-and-invention-flannery-oconnors-prayer-journal
  |archive-date = May 14, 2016
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="Childhood Home">
  {{cite web
  |url = http://www.flanneryoconnorhome.org/#!about/c1p9k
  |title = About
  |website = FlanneryOConnorHome.org
  |date = 2015
  |access-date = May 17, 2016
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="Downes (2015)">
  {{cite news
  |last = Downes
  |first = Lawrence
  |title = A Good Stamp Is Hard to Find
  |date = June 4, 2015
  |newspaper = [[The New York Times]]
  |department = Opinion
  |url = https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/a-good-stamp-is-hard-to-find.html
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151107230551/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/a-good-stamp-is-hard-to-find.html
  |archive-date=November 7, 2015 |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="Enniss (2007)">
  {{cite interview
  |last = Enniss
  |first = Steve
  |interviewer = [[Jacki Lyden]]
  |title = Flannery O'Connor's Private Life Revealed in Letters
  |work = [[National Public Radio]]
  |date = May 12, 2007
  |url = https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=10154699
  |access-date = May 13, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160509125121/http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=10154699
  |archive-date = May 9, 2016
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="FOA Winners">
  {{cite web
  |title = Complete List of Flannery O'Connor Award Winners
  |website = [[University of Georgia Press]]
  |url = http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/series/foc_winners
  |access-date = May 17, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110811173128/http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/series/foc_winners
  |archive-date = August 11, 2011
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="FSG (2015)">
  {{cite web
  |title = A Stamp of Good Fortune: Redesigning the Flannery O'Connor Postage
  |date = July 2015
  |work = Work in Progress
  |publisher = [[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]]
  |url = http://www.fsgworkinprogress.com/2015/07/a-stamp-of-good-fortune/
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160408200237/http://www.fsgworkinprogress.com/2015/07/a-stamp-of-good-fortune/
  |archive-date = April 8, 2016
  |url-status = live
  |quote = [T]he soft focus portrait and oversized, decorative peacock feathers . . . do little to support the composition or speak to O'Connor as a literary force. And why do away with her signature cat-eye sunglasses? A 'soft focus' Flannery is at odds with her belief that, 'modern writers must often tell "perverse" stories to "shock" a morally blind world . . . It requires considerable courage not to turn away from the story-teller.'
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="Gordon">
  {{cite encyclopedia
  |last = Gordon
  |first = Sarah
  |title = Flannery O'Connor
  |date = December 8, 2015
  |orig-date = Originally published July 10, 2002
  |encyclopedia = [[New Georgia Encyclopedia]]
  |publisher = Georgia Humanities Council
  |url = http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/flannery-oconnor-1925-1964
  |access-date = May 13, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160314114535/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/flannery-oconnor-1925-1964
  |archive-date = March 14, 2016
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="Heintjes (2014)">
  {{cite web
  |last = Heintjes
  |first = Tom
  |title = Flannery O'Connor, Cartoonist
  |date = June 27, 2014
  |website = [[Hogan's Alley (magazine)|Hogan's Alley]]
  |url = http://cartoonician.com/flannery-oconnor-cartoonist/
  |access-date = May 12, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160316111442/http://cartoonician.com/flannery-oconnor-cartoonist/
  |archive-date = March 16, 2016
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="Itzkoff (2009)">
  {{cite news
  |last = Itzkoff
  |first = Dave
  |title = Voters Choose Flannery O'Connor in National Book Award Poll
  |date = November 19, 2009
  |newspaper = [[The New York Times]]
  |department = ArtsBeat (blog)
  |url = http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/voters-choose-flannery-oconnor-in-national-book-award-poll/
  |access-date = May 11, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150906051408/http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/voters-choose-flannery-oconnor-in-national-book-award-poll/
  |archive-date=September 6, 2015 |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="Lebos (2014)">
  {{cite news
  |last = Lebos
  |first = Jessica Leign
  |title = Southern Gothic: Flannery O'Connor Little Free Libraries
  |date = December 31, 2014
  |newspaper = [[Connect Savannah]]
  |department = Community
  |url = http://www.connectsavannah.com/savannah/southern-gothic-oconnor-little-free-libraries/Content?oid=2515180
  |access-date = May 17, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160409112202/http://www.connectsavannah.com/savannah/southern-gothic-oconnor-little-free-libraries/Content?oid=2515180
  |archive-date = April 9, 2016
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="National Book Awards 1972">
  {{cite web
  |url = http://www.nationalbook.org/nba1972.html
  |title = National Book Awards – 1972
  |website = [[National Book Foundation]]
  |access-date = May 11, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160423224631/http://www.nationalbook.org/nba1972.html
  |archive-date = April 23, 2016
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="New Yorker (2013)">
  {{cite magazine
  |last = O'Connor
  |first = Flannery
  |title = My Dear God: A Young Writer's Prayers
  |date = September 16, 2013
  |magazine = [[The New Yorker]]
  |department = Journals
  |url = https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/16/my-dear-god
  |access-date = May 17, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151124133750/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/16/my-dear-god
  |archive-date = November 24, 2015
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="Robinson (2013)">
  {{cite news
  |last = Robinson
  |first = Marilynne
  |author-link = Marilynne Robinson
  |title = The Believer: Flannery O'Connor's 'Prayer Journal'
  |date = November 15, 2013
  |newspaper = [[The New York Times]]
  |department = Sunday Book Review
  |url = https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/books/review/flannery-oconnors-prayer-journal.html
  |access-date = May 17, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150928223934/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/books/review/flannery-oconnors-prayer-journal.html
  |archive-date = September 28, 2015
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="USPS (2015)">
  {{cite web
  |title = Stamp Announcement 15-28: Flannery O'Connor Stamp
  |date = May 28, 2015
  |website = United States Postal Service
  |url = https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2015/pb22416/html/info_012.htm
  |access-date = May 17, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151028215939/http://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2015/pb22416/html/info_012.htm
  |archive-date = October 28, 2015
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="Wild (2011)">
  {{cite news
  |last = Wild
  |first = Peter
  |title = A Fresh Look at Flannery O'Connor: You May know Her Prose, but Have You Seen Her Cartoons?
  |date = July 5, 2011
  |newspaper = [[The Guardian]]
  |department = Books blog
  |url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/jul/05/fresh-look-flannery-o-connor-cartoons
  |access-date = May 13, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160315004431/http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/jul/05/fresh-look-flannery-o-connor-cartoons
  |archive-date = March 15, 2016
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
<ref name="Young (2007)">
  {{cite magazine
  |last = Young
  |first = Alec T.
  |title = Flannery's Friend: Emory Unseals Letters from O'Connor to Longtime Correspondent Betty Hester
  |date = Autumn 2007
  |magazine = Emory Magazine
  |url = https://www.emory.edu/EMORY_MAGAZINE/2007/autumn/flannery.html
  |access-date = May 15, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150926090832/https://www.emory.edu/EMORY_MAGAZINE/2007/autumn/flannery.html
  |archive-date = September 26, 2015
  |url-status = live
  }}
</ref>
}}

===Works cited===
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book
  |contributor-last = Fitzgerald
  |contributor-first = Robert
  |contribution = Introduction
  |contributor-link = Robert Fitzgerald
  |last = O'Connor
  |first = Flannery
  |title = Everything That Rises Must Converge
  |publisher = [[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]]
  |date = 1965
  |url = https://archive.org/details/everythingthatri00ocon
  |url-access = registration
  |isbn = 978-0-374-50464-9
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last = Giannone
  |first = Richard
  |title = Flannery O'Connor, Hermit Novelist
  |date = 2012
  |publisher = [[University of South Carolina Press]]
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8zkMCAAAQBAJ
  |isbn = 978-1-61117-227-0
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last = Gooch
  |first = Brad
  |title = Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor
  |date = 2009
  |publisher = [[Little, Brown, and Company]]
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=RWyOhevEnxgC
  |isbn = 978-0-316-04065-5
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last = Martin
  |first = Carter W.
  |title = The True Country: Themes in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor
  |date = 1968
  |publisher = [[Vanderbilt University Press]]
  }}
* {{cite book
  |last = O'Connor
  |first = Flannery
  |editor-last1 = Fitzgerald
  |editor-first1 = Sally
  |editor-last2 = Fitzgerald
  |editor-first2 = Robert
  |title = Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
  |date = 1969
  |publisher = [[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]]
  |url = https://archive.org/details/mysterymanners00flan
  |url-access = registration
  |isbn = 978-0-374-50804-3
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last = O'Connor
  |first = Flannery
  |editor-last = Fitzgerald
  |editor-first = Sally
  |title = The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
  |publisher = [[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]]
  |date = 1979
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zU9liqlCzmsC
  |isbn = 978-0-374-52104-2
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last1 = O'Connor
  |first1 = Flannery
  |last2 = Magee
  |first2 = Rosemary M.
  |title = Conversations with Flannery O'Connor
  |year = 1987
  |publisher = [[University of Missouri Press]]
  |isbn = 0-87805-265-8
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=npIAEl9PfmEC
  }}
* {{cite book
  |last1 = O'Connor
  |first1 = Flannery
  |editor-last1 = Zuber
  |editor-first1 = Leo
  |editor-last2 = Martin
  |editor-first2 = Carter W.
  |title = The Presence of Grace, and Other Book Reviews
  |publisher = [[University of Georgia Press]]
  |date = 2008
  |orig-date = 1983
  |isbn = 978-0-8203-3139-3
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=6wDBOJKg9QAC
  }}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==

===General===
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite interview
  |last = Enniss
  |first = Steve
  |interviewer = [[Jacki Lyden]]
  |title = Flannery O'Connor's Private Life Revealed in Letters
  |work = [[National Public Radio]]
  |date = May 12, 2007
  |url = https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=10154699
  |access-date = May 13, 2016
  |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160509125121/http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=10154699
  |archive-date = May 9, 2016
  |url-status = live
  }}
* {{cite journal
  |last = Marshall
  |first = Nancy
  |title = Andalusia: Photographs of Flannery O'Connor's Farm
  |date = April 28, 2008
  |journal = [[Southern Spaces]]
  |volume = 2008
 |url = http://southernspaces.org/2008/andalusia-photographs-flannery-oconnors-farm
  |doi = 10.18737/M7GG60
 |doi-access = free
  }}
* {{cite journal
  |last = McCulloch
  |first = Christine
  |title = Glimpsing Andalusia in the O'Connor–Hester Letters
  |date = October 23, 2008
  |journal = [[Southern Spaces]]
  |volume = 2008
 |url = http://southernspaces.org/2008/glimpsing-andalusia-oconnor-hester-letters
  |doi = 10.18737/M7BS43
 |doi-access = free
  }}
* {{cite interview
  |last = Wood
  |first = Ralph
  |interviewer = Rafael Pi Roman
  |title = Flannery O'Connor
  |work = [[Religion & Ethics Newsweekly]]
  |publisher = [[PBS]]
  |date = November 20, 2009
  |url = https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2009/11/20/november-20-2009-flannery-oconnor/5043/
  }}
{{refend}}

===Biographies===
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite encyclopedia
  |editor-last = Bloom
  |editor-first = Harold
  |editor-link = Harold Bloom
  |title = Flannery O'Connor
  |date = 2009
  |publisher = [[Infobase Publishing]]
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=5Y36FhTDgTkC
  |isbn = 978-1-4381-2875-7
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last = Cash
  |first = Jean W.
  |title = Flannery O'Connor: A Life
  |date = 2003
  |publisher = [[University of Tennessee Press]]
  |url = https://archive.org/details/flanneryoconnorl00cash
  |url-access = registration
  |isbn = 978-1-57233-305-5
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last = Murray
  |first = Lorraine V.
  |author-link = Lorraine Murray
  |title = The Abbess of Andalusia: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O'Connor
  |publisher = [[Saint Benedict Press]]
  |date = 2009
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=aXCNQQAACAAJ
  |isbn = 978-1-935302-16-2
 }}
{{refend}}

===Criticism and cultural impact===
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book
  |last = Basselin
  |first = Timothy J.
  |title =  Flannery O'Connor: Writing a Theology of Disability Humanity
  |date = 2013
  |publisher = Baylor University Press
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=-gfGDAEACAAJ
  |isbn = 978-1-60258-399-3
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last = Bruner
  |first = Michael Mears
  |title = A Subversive Gospel: Flannery O'Connor and the Reimaging of Beauty, Goodness and Truth
  |date = 2017
  |publisher = [[InterVarsity Press]]
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4D08MQAACAAJ
  |isbn = 978-0-8308-5066-2
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last = Westling
  |first = Louise
  |title = Sacred Groves and Ravaged Gardens
  |date = 2008
  |publisher = [[University of Georgia Press]]
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=oOKvHUha4jUC
  |isbn = 978-0-8203-3202-4
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last = Wood
  |first = Ralph
  |title = Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South
  |date = 2004
  |publisher = [[Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company]]
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=W8mdfufdz7EC
  |isbn = 978-0-8028-2999-3
 }}
{{refend}}

===Scholarly guides===
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book
  |last = Scott
  |first = R. Neil
  |title = Flannery O'Connor: An Annotated Reference Guide to Criticism
  |publisher = Timberlane Books
  |date = 2002
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=YdNF_8KqlV0C
  |isbn = 978-0-9715428-0-8
 }}
* {{cite book
  |last1 = Scott
  |first1 = R. Neil
  |last2 = Nye
  |first2 = Valerie
  |editor-last1 = Gordon
  |editor-first1 = Sarah
  |editor-last2 = Streight
  |editor-first2 = Irwin Howard
  |title = Postmarked Milledgeville: A Guide to Flannery O'Connor's Correspondence in Libraries and Archives
  |publisher = Georgia College & State University
  |date = 2002
  |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6DfAAAACAAJ
  |isbn = 978-0-9715567-0-6
 }}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
{{Library resources box |by = yes |viaf = 17227472 }}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [http://www.flanneryoconnor.org/ The Flannery O'Connor Repository]
* {{FadedPage |id = O'Connor, Flannery |name = Flannery O'Connor |author = yes }}
* Flannery O'Connor reads short story [https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/25/flannery-o-connor-grotesque-reading/ A Good Man is Hard to Find] (audio)
* Flannery O'Connor introduction to lecture, on [https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/25/flannery-o-connor-grotesque-reading/ Southern Grotesque].
* Flannery O'Connor [https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/12/12/flannery-oconnor-cartoons/ cartoons]

=== Library resources ===
* [http://www.postmarkedmilledgeville.com ''Postmarked Milledgeville''], a guide to archival collections of O'Connor's letters
* [https://rose.library.emory.edu/ Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library], Emory University: [http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/gs24t Flannery O'Connor papers, 1832–2003]
* [https://rose.library.emory.edu/ Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library], Emory University: [http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/8zqf5 Flannery O'Connor collection, c. 1937–2003]
* [https://rose.library.emory.edu/ Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library], Emory University: [http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/8zqd1 Letters to Betty Hester, 1955–1964]

{{Clear}}
{{Works by Flannery O'Connor}}
{{NBA for Fiction 1950–1974}}
{{Georgia Women of Achievement}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:OConnor, Flannery}}
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