DuBose Heyward

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1885, DuBose Heyward became an American novelist, poet, and dramatist whose writing was deeply shaped by the city around him. Reliable reference sources agree that he is best known for his 1925 novel Porgy, drawn from Charleston life and later transformed for the stage.

Heyward worked with his wife, Dorothy Heyward, to adapt Porgy into a 1927 play, and the story went on to become the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess with music by George Gershwin. That long afterlife helped make his original novel one of the most influential literary works to come out of the American South in the early twentieth century.

He also wrote poetry and other fiction, and sources describe him as an important figure in Southern literature. Heyward died in 1940 at the age of 54, but his work continues to be read, staged, and debated for the way it captured a particular place, voice, and moment in American culture.