William Styron
William Styron (1925-2006)[1] was an American author. His works include Lie Down in Darkness (1951), The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), and Sophie's Choice (1979). He won a Pulitzer Prize for The Confessions of Nat Turner.[2]
Life and works
Styron was born June 11, 1925, in Newport News, Virginia.[3] He attended an Episcopal high school, entered Davidson College, and served as a Marine during World War Two, after which he developed an interest in literature, though his military mind was discouraged.[4] At age 26, he wrote his first novel, Lie Down In Darkness (1951), about a suicide brought about by the Hiroshima bombing, and he followed this with The Long March (1957), Set This House on Fire (1960), and The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), a novel bravely examining the life of Nat Turner but maligned by liberals who deny Turner's violence.[5] African-Americans criticized it especially, but he still followed it with Sophie's Choice (1979), about a Polish survivor of Auschwitz living in Brooklyn, and several novellas.[6] In later essays such as Darkness Visible (1990) and A Tidewater Morning (1993), he recounts his own life and struggles with depression.[7]
References
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/books/02styron.html
- ↑ The New York Public Library Student's Desk Reference. Prentice Hall, New York: 1991.
- ↑ https://www.biography.com/people/william-styron-9498425
- ↑ http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/american-literature-biographies/william-styron
- ↑ https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/william-styron-about-william-styron/714/
- ↑ https://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/literature-and-the-arts/biographies/american-literature-biographies/styron-william
- ↑ "Styron, William." Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
