William Faulkner
(1897–1962)

William Faulkner is generally regarded as the most innovative American novelist of his time. In his work he experimented with narrative chronology, explored multiple points of view, and delved deeply into the minds of his characters. Yet, although he used a variety of forms and techniques in his novels and short stories, most of his works are linked through a common setting—the fictional world of Yoknapatawpha county, Mississippi.

Faulkner grew up in Oxford, Mississippi. Although he never finished high school, he read a great deal and developed an interest in writing at an early age. In 1918, he enlisted in the British Royal Flying Corps and was sent to Canada for training. However, World War I ended before he had a chance to see combat, and he returned to Mississippi. Several years later, longing for a change of scene, he moved to New Orleans. There he became friends with Sherwood Anderson, who offered encouragement and helped get his first novel, A Soldier's Pay (1926), published.

In 1926, Faulkner moved back to Oxford and concentrated on his writing. He first earned critical acclaim in 1929 when he published The Sound and the Fury, a complex novel exploring the downfall of an old southern family as seen through the eyes of three different characters. A year later, he published As I Lay Dying, a novel in which the point of view constantly shifts as Faulkner delves into the varying perceptions of death.

Faulkner went on to write several more inventive novels, including Lights in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom (1936), and The Wild Palms (1939). His later works, such as The Unvanquished (1938) and The Hamlet (1940), were more traditional in form. Yet in these novels, Faulkner continued developing the history of Yoknapatawpha County and its people.

Despite the critical success of some of his works, Faulkner did not earn widespread public recognition until 1946, when The Portable Faulkner—an anthology in which many of his writings about Yoknapatawpha County were presented in chronological order—was published. Four years later he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature following the publication of Intruder in the Dust (1948), a novel in which he confronted the issue of racism.

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