Prophets and Poets Southern Literature, 1941-1962A wave of bold American writing from both white and black authors gave expression to Southern life during World War II and the years that followed. This program tells the story of that literary development up to the era of the Civil Rights movement. It presents the work of Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, Robert Penn Warren, Ralph Ellison, Lillian Smith, Flannery O'Connor, and others - as well as a revealing 1997 interview with Welty herself. An inventive dramatization of the opening of Ellison's Invisible Man evokes the sense of surreal alienation conveyed in that novel. In addition, viewers will find excerpts from the rarely seen 1951 film adaptation of Wright's Native Son, starring Wright himself, as well as readings from O'Connor's Wise Blood, "Everything That Rises Must Converge," and "A Good Man Is Hard to Find."
