To Kill a Mockingbird

You cannot claim you know the English literature until after you read this number. Its’ a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. I am proud to say that this was my English Literature textbook when I was in Form 5. But I didn’t pay attention the character of the book then, as I viewed as a textbook as it is, and nothing more. (Plus, my teacher for the subject was somebody who murdered my thrill for reading and writing any piece of literature, but that’s another story altogether, to be told later). It was years after I graduated that I really ‘read’ the book.

Set in the 1930’s this book is about the author and her family dealing with racism in their neighbourhood. The warm and amusing elements in this book are thanks to Lee’s views as a 10 year old. The book intelligently highlighted racism issues through the innocence of children’s perspective.

I have no other reason to coax you into reading the book, except for the fact that you have to. Critics were tongue tied, the British regard it as a writing ahead of the Bible; and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1962 by director Robert Mulligan, with a screenplay by Horton Foote.

So what if you have read all of Shakespeare’s Sonnets? It’s nothing if you haven’t read this one.