Ann Petry (1908-1997), novelist and writer of short stories and books for young people, was one of America's most distinguished authors. Her first published story appeared in 1943 in the Crisis. She then began on her first novel, The Street, which was published in 1946 and for which she received the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship. Petry wrote two more novels, The Country Place and The Narrows, and numerous short stories, articles and children's books.