Heyward was a fragile child, often ill. He contracted polio when he was 18 and had also suffered typhoid fever at one stage. In view of this, his education suffered and he left high school without graduating. He had begun to write some poetry and short stories during many of his bed-ridden illnesses and was determined to have a literary career. He produced his first play, An Artistic Triumph, which ran at a local theatre and achieved some success. His first story, The Brute, appeared in Pagan magazine in 1918. In 1919, he met Hervey Allen and the two became life-long friends. They founded the Poetry Society of South Carolina and later collaborated on the highly successful Carolina Chansons. He married Dorothy Kuhns in 1922 and she was a great influence on him and helped him in his work. |In 1925, he wrote Porgy, a novel of Charleston Negro life which was later adapted as a play by he and his wife. The play subsequently received the Pulitzer Prize and was subsequently made into the opera Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin in 1935. Heyward's other work includes Jasbo Brown and Other Poems (1924), Mamba's Daughters (1929), Brass Ankle (1931). Peter Ashley (1932) and Star Spangled Virgin (1939). |
