In 1965 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her novel The Keepers of the House, set in a fictional Alabama town.

[4] Grau's first collection of stories The Black Prince was nominated for the National Book Award in 1956.

"'I was awfully short-tempered that morning because I'd been up all night with one of my children,' Grau said ... 'So, I said to the voice I mistook, "yeah and I'm the Queen of England too," and I hung up on him.'"

"[8] Grau's writing explores issues of death, destruction, abortion, and miscegenation, frequently set in historical Alabama[9] or Louisiana.

[10] In 1955 Grau married James Feibleman, a fellow writer and a professor of philosophy at Tulane University.