Faulkner, William (Cuthbert)

(born Sept. 25, 1897, New Albany, Miss., U.S.—died July 6, 1962, Byhalia, Miss.) U.S. writer. Faulkner dropped out of high school and only briefly attended college. He spent most of his life in Oxford, Miss. He is best known for his cycle of works set in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, which becomes an emblem of the American South and its tragic history. His first major novel, The Sound and the Fury (1929), was marked by radical technical experimentation, including stream of consciousness. His American reputation, which lagged behind his European reputation, was boosted by As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom! (1936), and Go Down, Moses (1942), which contains the story “The Bear.” The Portable Faulkner (1946) finally brought his work into wide circulation, and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. His Collected Stories (1950) won the National Book Award. Both in the U.S. and abroad, especially in Latin America, he was among the most influential writers of the 20th century.