 Her posthumously compiled "Complete Stories" won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and has been the subject of enduring praise.O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of Edward Francis O'Connor, a real estate agent, and Regina Cline, who were both of Irish descent.As an adult, she remembered herself as a "pigeon-toed child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I'll-bite-you complex."