Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930–65, American playwright, b. Chicago. She grew up on Chicago's South Side. In 1959 she became the first black woman to have a play produced on Broadway when A Raisin in the Sun opened to wide critical acclaim. The play dealt in human terms with the serious and comic problems of a black family in modern America. Her next play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1964) was less successful. Hansberry died of cancer at 35. A collection of her writings, To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, was published in 1969.

Hansberry, Lorraine

(born May 19, 1930, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—died Jan. 12, 1965, New York, N.Y.) U.S. playwright. Her first play was A Raisin in the Sun (1959), a penetrating psychological study of a working-class African American family in Chicago. The first drama by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, it won high critical praise and was filmed in 1961. Her next play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1964), a drama of political questioning and affirmation, had a modest Broadway run. Her promising career was cut short by her early death from cancer.

Hansberry, Lorraine (1930–65) playwright; born in Chicago. She is best known as the author of A Raisin in the Sun (1959). A Broadway success and later a movie, the novel explored the struggles of a black family to escape from the ghetto. Hansberry died prematurely, before she was able to fulfill her promise as an eloquent spokesperson for African-Americans' trials and aspirations.