Lorraine Hansberry

When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever."

A play that deals with the effect that an unexpected, large sum of money has on a poor black family living on the South side of Chicago.

A selection of prose, dramatic writings, and drawings done by African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry, which, combined with other fiction and non-fiction commentary, provide insight into her life, thoughts, feelings, and career.

Members of an African American family living in a cramped Chicago apartment, in this deeply resonant tale of dreams deferred. Following the death of their patriarch, the Youngers await a life insurance check they hope will change their circumstances, but tensions arise over how best to use the money.

"Spanning from the debut of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959 to her early death from cancer in January 1965, Lorraine Hansberry's short stint in the public eye changed the landscape of American theater. With A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry (1930-1965) became both the first African American woman to have a play produced on Broadway and the first to win the prestigious New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. Resonating deeply with the aims of the...