Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930-1965

Les blancs was one of two plays Lorraine Hansberry left uncompleted at the time of her death in 1965. Her former husband, Robert Nemiroff, finished the play from her notes, and it received its first New York production in 1970.

From the description of Les blancs / by Lorraine Hansberry, 1998. (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 669990123

Lorraine Hansberry, African-American playwright, writer and activist, is best known for her play, "A Raisin in the Sun." Born in 1930 in Chicago to real estate broker, Carl Hansberry and Nannie Louise Perry (her uncle was the Africanist scholar, William Leo Hansberry), Lorraine grew up on the south side of Chicago. "A Raisin in the Sun" was inspired by her father's legal battle against a racially restrictive covenant that prohibited African-American families from buying homes in certain neighborhoods. In 1950 Hansberry moved to New York City to become a writer and served as an editor for Paul Robeson's newspaper, "Freedom." In 1959, "A Raisin in the Sun" became the first play written by an African-American woman produced on Broadway. The play received the New York Drama Critics Award making Hansberry the youngest and first African American to receive the Award. Hansberry's second play, "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window," was mounted as she battled pancreatic cancer. She died in 1965 at age 34.

From the description of Lorraine Hansberry papers, 1947-1988. (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 456433644

From the guide to the Lorraine Hansberry papers, 1947-1988, (The New York Public Library. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division.)