National Book Award Winner

The Complete Stories

by Flannery O'Connor

Summary

This posthumous volume gathers all of O'Connor's short fiction, set largely in the rural and small-town South she knew as a Georgia farm-bound writer living with lupus. Her stories pair sharp, often hilarious dialogue with sudden eruptions of violence and grace, shaped by a fierce Catholic moral imagination. The collection is widely regarded as one of the indispensable bodies of work in American literature.

Historical Context & Significance

O'Connor had died seven years prior; in 2009, this collection was voted the best NBA winner in the prize's entire 60-year history.