Heyward, DuBose

Heyward, (Edwin) DuBose

(1885–1940) writer; born in Charleston, S.C. He was educated and lived in Charleston. He worked in a hardware store and as a checker in a cotton warehouse, a crucial experience. Although not African-American, he drew on the life of South Carolina blacks for much of his writing. He and his wife dramatized his first novel, Porgy (1925), and it was the basis for George Gershwin's opera, Porgy and Bess (1935). He also wrote poetry and other fictional works.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.