James Agee’s 1936 Fortune magazine article was the basis for his 1941 book on poverty in the South Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. That 30,000-word article, previously unpublished because Agee felt it was obscene to “pry intimately into the lives of an undefended and appallingly damaged group of human beings,” will now be published as the book “Cotton Tenants: Three Families”. The release of this book will include the real names of Agee’s sharecropper families, which Agee had wanted to keep private. You can read the entire fascinating NYT article here. Check the library catalog for books by James Agee.
Laura