Q1: What do you know about the author of this story?
Margot Lee Shetterly is the Author of this novel and was raised in a middle-
class community of Hampton, Virginia. Her father was a climate scientist at NASA
Langley research center while her mother was an English professor at Hampton
University. Shetterly studied business from the University of Virginia and then she
moved to New York where she worked at several prestigious investment banking
firms and media startups. She moved to Mexico after marrying writer Aran
Shetterly in 2005 to start a magazine for anglophone expacts in Mexico. Shetterly
began writing and researching Hidden Figure in 2010 while living in Mexico.
Q2: Why did Author wrote this story and what was her motivation behind writing
this story?
This novel’s author is named Margot Lee Shetterly who has a relation with
NASA. Her father served in NASA for 40 years and experienced World War II. Her
father taught her stories of how black human computers contributed to NASA in
achieving victory through air power but still faced racial discrimination, there
efforts are still hidden and need to be shown to the world. Shetterly was impressed
by character of Dorothy Vaughan and new a lot about her life which made her
make Dorothy main character of this story. This novel was written to show the
world importance of those black women who made NASA world’s best aeronautics
company. It was also written to motivate those who feel themselves degrade
because of their cast, religion, color, height or financial conditions.
Q3: Why do you think writing this prologue was important?
Writing the
Q2: What are the main themes of this story?
There are 3 main themes of this story:
Racial discrimination and inequality
This story is based in how Black people, especially women of that time
where imagined as degraded humans and how they faced discrimination and
inequality. According to this novel, Black people were named as Negros and were
allowed to live in specific areas and travel in specific sections of buses. This tells