Ann Petry

Ann Lane Petry (October 12, 1908, Old Saybrook, Connecticut – April 28, 1997, Old Saybrook) was an African American novelist, journalist and biographer. Her 1946 best selling novel, The Street, was the first novel by an African American writer to sell over one million copies. The story offered the rarely portrayed perspective of a working class African-American woman in the late 1940s, struggling to provide a decent life for herself and her son in Harlem.

Petry graduated from the University of Connecticut in 1931 with a degree in pharmacy. From 1931 to 1938 she worked in her family's drugstore before moving to New York City to become a writer. She began her career as a journalist, writing for the Amsterdam News (1938–41) and the Peoples' Voice of Harlem (1941–44), and then studied creative writing at Columbia University (1944–46).

Her later writings included historical novels such as Harriet Tubman: Conductor of the Underground Railroad and Tituba of Salem Village.

Works by Ann Petry

• The Street (1946);
• Country Place (1947);
• The Narrows (1953).
• Miss Muriel and Other Stories (1971).