Nelle Harper Lee (born April 28, 1926) is an American novelist widely known for her 1960 Pulitzer Prize–winning To Kill a Mockingbird, which deals with the racism she observed as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Though Lee published only this single book for half a century, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature.[1] Lee has received numerous honorary degrees, and declined to speak on each occasion. Lee assisted close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966).[2] In February 2015, aged 88, after a lifetime of maintaining that she would never publish another novel, Lee released a statement through her lawyer confirming publication of a second novel, Go Set a Watchman, written before To Kill a Mockingbird, which was released in July 2015.