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Although her life was brutally curtailed by cancer at only thirty-four, Lorraine Hansberry's contribution to Afro-American culture was considerable, much richer and more varied than most people realize. Her first staged drama, A Raisin in the Sun (produced in 1959), remains her best known work, and its popular appeal has long been acknowledged. Through it, Hansberry gained historical importance as the first black woman to have a play on Broadway, the first black and youngest American to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and a trailblazer whose success enabled other blacks to get their plays produced. Having exhilarated audiences for over twenty-five years by its profound affirmation of black life in all its diversity and creativity and of black strength through generations of struggle, this play seems assured of becoming a classic. Her second drama, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (produced in 1964), achieved far less commercial success, possibly because it had to be seen twice to be justly appreciated, possibly because it challenged too many preconceptions about what subjects were appropriate for Afro-American writers.
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