Written when she was just 28, Lorraine Hansberry's landmark play A Raisin in the Sun is undeniably a classic, but who was this influential, pioneering black playwright? In this biography, Charles Shields notes her upper-class background, her fight for nuclear disarmament, the reason why she embraced Communism during the Cold War, and her dependence on her white husband. As Shields suggests, Hansberry had a gift for reinvention, and her identity issues—class, sexuality, and race—that she struggled with are relevant and urgent today.