The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
First edition
AuthorCarson McCullers
LanguageEnglish
GenreSouthern Gothic
PublisherHoughton Mifflin
Publication date
1940
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages356 pp

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is the debut novel of American author Carson McCullers, who was 23 at the time of publication. It is a Southern Gothic novel about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the U.S. state of Georgia.

The novel was received positively both as a realist commentary on social conflict and as a parable about fascism.