What american authors have interesting backgrounds?
I think Helen Keller’s background is exceptionally interesting. She was born in Alabama in 1880 as the daughter of a former Confederate officer and became blind and death at the age of two. Her mother was inspired by Charles Dickens’ account of another blind and death child who was given an education, and was determined to find someone to teach Helen. Alexander Graham Bell had been working with deaf children at the time and recommended that they contact a school for the blind in Massachusetts where the girl Dickens’ wrote about had been educated. There the family was introduced to Anne Sullivan, who would soon be hired to be Helen’s teacher and governess and would become a lifelong companion. Helen learned how to read Braille in multiple languages and went on to be the first blind-death person to ever receive a university degree; she graduated from Harvard’s sister school, Radcliffe College. At age 22 she published her autobiography, “The Story of My Life,” and went on to write essays
