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Lorraine Hansberry took the title of A Raisin in the Sun from Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem", which asks what happens to a dream that is put off. When the play opened in 1959, she became the first Black woman to have a play staged on Broadway. It set that question inside one Chicago family's fight for a home.

Broadway, 1959

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Hansberry drew on her own childhood. Around 1938 her father, Carl Hansberry, bought a house in Chicago's Washington Park area, where a racially restrictive covenant, a private agreement among owners, barred sales to Black families. White neighbours went to court to force the family out. The case, Hansberry v. Lee, reached the US Supreme Court in 1940, which ruled for the Hansberrys on a narrow procedural point without declaring such covenants invalid; courts stopped enforcing them only after Shelley v. Kraemer in 1948. A Raisin in the Sun won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, making Hansberry, at 29, the youngest American playwright to receive it. She died of cancer in 1965, aged 34.

Türkçe oku
Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun oyununun adını Langston Hughes'un, ertelenen bir hayale ne olduğunu soran “Harlem” şiirinden aldı. Oyun 1959'da sahnelendiğinde Hansberry, Broadway'de oyunu oynanan ilk Siyah kadın yazar oldu. Oyun bu soruyu, kendi evine sahip olmaya çalışan Chicagolu bir ailenin hikâyesine taşıdı.
Broadway, 1959

Hansberry oyunda kendi çocukluğundan yararlandı. Babası Carl Hansberry, 1938 dolaylarında Chicago'nun Washington Park bölgesinde bir ev satın aldı. Oradaki ev sahipleri, Siyah ailelere satış yapmamak için aralarında ırk ayrımcı bir sözleşme imzalamıştı. Beyaz komşular aileyi evden çıkarmak için mahkemeye gitti. Hansberry v. Lee davası 1940'ta ABD Yüksek Mahkemesi'ne kadar uzandı. Mahkeme usule ilişkin dar bir gerekçeyle aileyi haklı buldu, ama bu tür sözleşmeleri geçersiz ilan etmedi; mahkemeler bu sözleşmeleri ancak 1948'deki Shelley v. Kraemer kararından sonra uygulamaz oldu. A Raisin in the Sun, New York Tiyatro Eleştirmenleri Birliği Ödülü'nü kazandı; 29 yaşındaki Hansberry bu ödülü alan en genç Amerikalı oyun yazarı oldu. 1965'te, 34 yaşındayken kanserden öldü.

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Background reading: A Raisin in the Sun
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