The publication of Go Set a Watchman may have cast Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird in a new light, but the high school classic and its author will forever occupy an essential spot in the American literary canon. Michiko Kakutani remembers Lee’s work for the Times:
Ms. Lee’s two novels both concern the loss of illusions, and public reaction to her books provide a window on America’s slow, stumbling efforts to grapple with racial inequality. They also raise important questions about the dynamic between fiction and history, and how we assess works of art from earlier eras—whether by the standards of the times in which they were written or through the prism of our values today.
