William Faulkner
American writer and novelist
Who was William Faulkner?
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; né Falkner; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. During World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, but did not serve in combat. In 1929, he published The Sound and the Fury. The following year, he wrote As I Lay Dying. Later that decade, he wrote Light in August; Absalom, Absalom!; and The Wild Palms.
Historical significance
He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spent most of his life. Winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature, often considered the greatest writer of Southern literature and regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel Soldiers' Pay (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote Sartoris (1927), his first work set in Yoknapatawpha County.
