Our season closes with To Kill a Mockingbird, a dramatization of Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honour and injustice in the Deep South and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred. One of the best-loved novels of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, and served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture.
It’s 1935, and racial tensions are high in Maycomb, Alabama. Nonetheless, young Jean Louise Finch – or Scout, as she is fondly called – manages to live a rather carefree, priviliged existence, insulated from issues of race. All that changes when Scout watches her father, Atticus Finch, defend an innocent man, Tom Robinson, against a potential death sentence, which looms threateningly against him because of racial prejudice. Scout learns that “growing up” often means doing what is right, even when it comes at great cost. To Kill A Mockingbird is now considered an American masterpiece.
