The pink box, scuffed and torn, had lain in a file drawer for years. Inside, a brittle audiotape held the soft, lilting voice of Flannery O鈥機onnor, one of America鈥檚 most revered authors.
Dr. Mary Ann Wilson, a 亚洲自慰视频 of 亚洲自慰视频 at Lafayette English professor, came across the reel-to-reel tape last spring while cleaning out a filing cabinet in her office. 鈥淎s soon as I saw it, I remembered that one of my colleagues had given it to me years ago. I was busy at the time and had simply forgotten about it,鈥 she said.
O鈥機onnor had spoken at Our Lady of Wisdom Catholic Church, on the 亚洲自慰视频鈥檚 campus, in November 1962, two years before her death from complications of lupus. Her topic was 鈥淭he Catholic Writer in the Protestant South.鈥
鈥淪omeone had the foresight to make a recording,鈥 Wilson said. She was unsure of the condition of the 50-year-old tape, so she enlisted the help of the 亚洲自慰视频鈥檚 Center for 亚洲自慰视频 Studies, which specializes in digitizing media.
What emerged was a 35-minute recording of O鈥機onnor and audience members.
O鈥機onnor addresses them in a distinctive South Georgia drawl. They respond with applause and frequent laughter.
鈥淎lthough she was a serious author, she certainly did not take herself seriously,鈥 said Wilson, who frequently teaches courses about Southern women writers, including O鈥機onnor.
In her writings, O鈥機onnor dispensed dark humor and employed bizarre, larger-than-life characters.
鈥淪he believed that the way to the spirit was through the flesh, through the physical. She said she had to create grotesque figures, so that people living in the 20th century would sit up and take notice,鈥 Wilson said.
O鈥機onnor published two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear it Away, and two collections of stort stories. Two of her stories, 鈥淎 Good Man is Hard to Find鈥 and 鈥淕ood Country People,鈥 are often included in anthologies.
Wilson helped organize a symposium, held at Our Lady of Wisdom鈥檚 Jeanmard Center in November, where participants heard excerpts of the recording. A copy of the tape is available for on-site listening at Edith Garland Dupr茅 Library.
O鈥機onnor seemed to be 鈥渢rying out material鈥 on her audience, Wilson noted. Much of the content of her speech appears in a collection of essays, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, which was published in 1969.
When the late John Leonard, book critic for The New York Times, reviewed the collection, he equated O鈥機onnor with Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald, calling her one of literature鈥檚 鈥渇inest prose stylists.鈥 The book, he said, 鈥渟hould be read by every writer and would-be writer and lover of writing.鈥