Gwendolyn Brooks is dead

CHICAGO: Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks, who won a Pulitzer Prize for writing candid and compassionate poetry that delved into poverty, racism and drugs among black people, has died. She was 83. Ms. Brooks was world renowned for promoting an understanding of black culture through her poetry while at the same time suggesting that inclusiveness is the key to harmony. ``I believe that we should all know each other, we human carriers of so many pleasurable differences,'' she said in a recent interview. ``To not know is to doubt, to shrink from, sidestep or destroy.'' Ms. Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949 for her second book of poetry, ``Annie Allen.'' She wrote hundreds of poems and more than 20 books and had been Illinois' poet laureate since 1968. The picture shows the U.S. First Lady, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, presenting the outstanding ``First Women'' award to Ms. Brooks in 1999.

- AP

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Section  : International
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