James
Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on 27th November, 1909. After
attending Harvard University he wrote
for various magazines including Time,
the Nation and the New
Masses. A volume of poems, Permit
Me Voyage, appeared in 1934.
In 1936 Agee and the photographer, Walker
Evans, were commissioned by Fortune Magazine
to produce an illustrated article on sharecroppers in Alabama. The
article was not published but the material the two men collected appeared
in the book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
(1941).
After the Second World War Agee he worked mainly
as a film scriptwriter. This included The
African Queen (1951), The Bride
Comes to Yellow Sky (1953) and The
Night of the Hunter (1955).
James Agee died in New York on 16th May,
1955. A novel, A Death in the Family,
published posthumously, was adapted for the stage as All
the Way Home (1960) and as a film three years later.
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