Mary Lee Settle

Mary Lee Settle (1918/07/29 - 2005/09/27) was an American novelist and essayist. She is well known for both her fictional and non-fictional work. Settle won the 1978 National Book Award for Fiction with Blood Tie, a story of American and European expatriates in Turkey. Her most ambitious work was Beulah Quintet, originally Beulah Trilogy, which she worked on for over 25 years. The series covers the history of West Virginia and traces the development of American culture over 300 years. The series is constituted by Beulah Land (1956, ii), Known Nothing (1960, iii), Prisons (1973, i), The Scapegoat (1980, iv), and The Killing Ground (1982, v). In later part of her career, she wrote travelogues about Turkey and Spain with Turkish Reflections and Spanish Recognitions, both receiving great acclaims.