William Faulkner was one of the most important writers of modern American literature, especially of the Southern genre. He won a Nobel Prize in 1949 for his body of work, which includes the classics The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Light in August, as well as numerous short stories and screenplays. He was born in Mississippi, and much of his fictional Yoknapatawpha County is drawn from Lafayette County, where he was raised. As a child he absorbed the stories of his elders and his African American nurse concerning the Civil War, the abolition of slavery, and the deeds of the Ku Klux Klan, which he incorporated into his novels and stories, reflecting the ravages of change and decay on the South and the uneasiness of racial relations. Most of his life was spent in Oxford, Mississippi, but he sojourned to Hollywood off and on throughout the thirties and forties to supplement his income by working on screenplays. Although married to his high school sweetheart, Faulkner engaged in several affairs throughout his lifetime, and undoubtedly his fondness for alcohol led to his death from a heart attack before he was quite 65 years old. The University of Mississippi (“Ole Missâ€), which he attended for some time, now owns and maintains the home he owned in Oxford, “Rowan Oakâ€.
