NEED TO KNOW

In a new posthumous collection by Harper Lee, The Land of Sweet Forever: Stories and Essays , readers can gain a fresh perspective on the celebrated author of To Kill a Mockingbird

It features both newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces, offering insight into her literary mind

Below, in an exclusive excerpt shared with PEOPLE, Lee reflects on her friend and colleague Truman Capote's time in Kansas

On a chilly Fall day in 1959 Truman Capote set out for Kansas armed with a footlocker of comestibles sufficient to support a few weeks of life in that forbidding land, little knowing that he was to devote the next five years to a work infinitely tantalizing and a true challenge to his genius.

At first it was like being on another

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