William Faulkner

Novelist

Birthday September 25, 1897

Birth Sign Libra

Birthplace New Albany, MS

DEATH DATE Jul 6, 1962 (64)

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About

Pulitzer Prize-winning, Southern Gothic writer whose best known works include The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and A Rose for Emily. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949.

Before Fame

He exclusively wrote poems during his teenage years. He began working on his masterpiece novel, The Sound and the Fury, when he was thirty years old.

Trivia

He became known for his distinct writing style, which is characterized by long, vividly descriptive sentences.

Family Life

He grew up in Mississippi as one of four sons born to Murry Cuthbert Falkner and Maud Butler. He married Estelle Oldham in 1929 and had several extramarital affairs. He had a daughter named Jill.

Associated With

He and his contemporary, Ernest Hemingway, wrote in very different styles (Hemingway filled his work with short, declarative sentences) and intensely disliked each other.