DuBose Heyward
Edwin DuBose Heyward , known as DuBose Heyward , (born August 31, 1885 in Charleston (South Carolina) , † June 16, 1940 in Tryon (South Carolina) ) was an American writer, known as the librettist of the opera Porgy and Bess ( 1935) to the music of George Gershwin .
Life
Heyward came from South Carolina's high society, but his family was impoverished by the American Civil War . His father died when he was two years old, and he dropped out of school at 14 to work in a hardware store. His professional career as a real estate and insurance broker was interrupted by several serious illnesses (polio, typhus, lung diseases) and he eventually turned to writing. In 1920 he founded the Poetry Society of South Carolina with Hervey Allen and John Bennett and published their yearbooks until 1924. In 1922 his collection of poems (with Hervey Allen) Carolina Chansons: Legends of the Low Country was published . In 1923 he married the playwright Dorothy Hartzell Kuhns , with whom he had a daughter Jennifer, born in 1930. In 1924 he gave up his business activity entirely and became a full-time writer, occasionally teaching literature at colleges.
His novel Porgy , published in 1925, was based on his observation of the life of colored workers in the Charleston shipyard district (residents of Catfish Row ). He and his wife turned it into a play (Porgy 1927), which was very successful on Broadway, and the libretto for the opera Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin (1935), with Ira Gershwin also collaborating on the libretto.
Another novel about the life of the colored population in Charleston, Mamba's Daughters , appeared in 1929, but was less successful. He made a play out of it in 1939 with his wife Dorothy. His play Brass Ankle (1931). His novel Star Spangled Virgin (set in the Virgin Islands) was published in 1939 and his children's book The Country Bunny and the little gold shoes in 1939 . Further works are Skylines and Horizons (1924), Angel (1926), The half pint flask (1929), Jasbo Brown and Selected Poems (1931), Peter Ashley (1932) and Lost Morning (1936).
He also wrote the scripts for The Emperor Jones (based on Eugene O'Neill ) and Good Earth (based on Pearl S. Buck ).
In 1937 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .
He died of a heart attack.
Web links
- Joseph M. Flora, Edwin DuBose Heyward, in Flora a. a. Southern Writers: A new biographical dictionary, 2006
- Heyward, Allen: Carolina Chansons, Project Gutenberg
- DuBose Heyward in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Members: DuBose Heyward. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 3, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Heyward, DuBose |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Heyward, Edwin DuBose (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 31, 1885 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Charleston, South Carolina |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 16, 1940 |
| Place of death | Tryon, South Carolina |