American author Harper Lee dead

Washington, Feb 19  Harper Lee, the author of the acclaimed "To Kill A Mockingbird" about racial injustice in a small town in the American south, died on Friday, reports said. She was 89.

The mayor's office in Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama and her publisher, Harper Collins announced she was dead. 

Born Nelle Harper Lee on April 38, 1926, her first book "To Kill A Mockingbird" came out in 1960 and was a huge critical and commercial success. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was adapted into a film starring Gregory Peck.

Lee did not release another novel until last year, when "Go Set A Watchman", which purports to be a sequel, but has its iconic characters in atypical representations. Research had showed it was actually a first draft.