Literary Life (continued)
The publication of Flowering Judas (1930), her first collection of short stories, led to a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed her to finally travel to Europe with her companion, Eugene Pressly, whom she would later marry. After spending time in Germany, Porter fell in love with Paris and settled there for four years.Though Porter obviously overcame a lack of education in order to become an esteemed writer, she never developed the self-discipline an education would have given her. In addition, she was very social, drank heavily as she got older, and had almost continual problems with men. While the lack of stability may have limited her productivity, no critic would argue against the quality of the published writing.
In the Paris Review interview, she said, "I started out with nothing in the world but a kind of passion, a driving desire. I don't know where it came from, and I don't know why -- or why I have been so stubborn about it that nothing could deflect me. But this thing between me and my writing is the strongest bond I have ever had -- stronger than any bond or any engagement with any human being or with any other work," and it seems that this, at least, was true throughout her life. Her single novel Ship of Fools appeared to rave reviews in 1962, when she was 72.
In 1966, her Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She died at the age of 90 in a nursing home in Silver Spring, MD, in September of 1980.
Recommended Reading: Katherine Anne Porter
Katherine Anne Porter's most acclaimed stories and novellas are well worth the reading (and re-reading). Afterwards, follow-up with a more in-depth biographical study.
