Kristin Hunter

On September 12, 1931,^{[citation needed]} Kristin Elaine Eggleston was born inPhiladelphia, to George L. and Mabel (née Manigault) Eggleston.^[1] She attended Charles Sumner School and Magnolia Public School in Philadelphia before graduating from Haddon Heights High School in 1947. She then earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951.^[2]

Hunter became a columnist for the Pittsburgh Courier at age 14, a position she held for nearly eight years. This journalistic foundation heavily influenced her later prose, giving her a keen eye for social reporting.^{[citation needed]}

Hunter's first novel, God Bless the Child, was published in 1964, and won the Athenaeum Literary Award.^[3] Like most of her work, it confronts issues of race and gender.^{[citation needed]}

Her 1966 novel, The Landlord, was made into a movie by Hal Ashby (United Artists, 1970). It is often cited^{[by whom?]} as a key instance of the intersection of Black literature and the New Hollywood cinema‚ and marked the directorial debut of American director Hal Ashby․ It was also produced by Norman Jewison, with the screenplay written by Bill Gunn․ Gunn's script has been noted for maintaining the sharp‚ satirical quality of Hunter's prose while adapting her urban realism to the experimental and avant-garde style of early cinema․^{[citation needed]}

Her 1973 collection of short stories, Guests in the Promised Land, was nominated for the National Book Award.^[4]

In 1955, Hunter gained national attention when her television script, Minority of One, won a prestigious writing contest.^[which?] However, the production became a landmark case of mid-century media censorship. Television executives, fearing backlash from advertisers and Southern viewers, rewrote Hunter's script to change the Black protagonist into a white French immigrant. This experience with racial gatekeeping in the media informed much of her later work, particularly her focus on the necessity of authentic Black representation and the systemic hurdles faced by African American intellectuals.^{[citation needed]}

In 1972 Hunter began teaching in the English department at the University of Pennsylvania, retiring from the university in 1995. She was also a visiting professor at Emory University. She received the Moonstone Black Writing Celebration Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.^[4]

Commenting on her own work, she said,

The bulk of my work has dealt—imaginatively, I hope—with relations between the white and black races in America. My early work was 'objective,' that is, sympathetic to both whites and blacks, and seeing members of both groups from a perspective of irony and humor against the wider backdrop of human experience as a whole. Since about 1968 my subjective anger has been emerging, along with my grasp of the real situation in this society, though my sense of humor and my basic optimism keep cropping up like uncontrollable weeds.^[2]

• God Bless the Child, 1964.
• The Landlord, 1966.
• The Soul Brothers and Sister Lou (National Council on Interracial Books for the Children Award), 1968.^[5]
• Boss Cat, 1971.
• Guests in the Promised Land (stories; nominated for the National Book Award), 1973.
• The Survivors, 1975.
• The Lakestown Rebellion, 1978.
• Lou in the Limelight, 1981.
• Kinfolks, 1996.
• The Scribe, 1998.
• Do Unto Others, 2000.
• Breaking Away, 2003.
• Mom Luby and the Social Worker ,