The Faulkner Portable in “the office” at Rowan Oak. William Faulkner 1897 – 1962 Born: Oxford, MS “To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.”

experimented with narrative chronology explored multiple points of view delved deeply into the minds of his characters Used a variety of techniques & forms with a common setting: Yoknapatawpha County, MS “the most innovative American novelist of his time”

never finished high school developed an early interest in writing 1918: enlisted in British Royal Flying Corp; trained in Canada; WWI ended before he saw combat 1925: left Oxford for New Orleans Sherwood Anderson –his literary encourager sailed to Europe later that year

Rowan Oak 719 Garfield Road Oxford, MS Family home of the Faulkner's for over 40 years.

1926: published first novel, Soldiers’ Pay 1929: critical acclaim for The Sound and the Fury –complex novel exploring the downfall of an old Southern family, seen through the eyes of 3 different characters 1930: published As I Lay Dying –a novel in which the point of view constantly shifts…varying perceptions of death

Wrote several more inventive novels: 1932: Light in August 1936: Absalom, Absalom 1938: The Unvanquished 1939: The Wild Palms 1940: The Hamlet 1946: widespread public recognition with his anthology, The Portable Faulkner

“Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: Stockholm, Sweden December 10, 1950 AN EXCERPT When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again.”

1949: Nobel Prize for Literature (received in 1950)—for his novel, Intruder in the Dust (1948); confronts issue of racism 1955: A Fable –winner of Pulitzer Prize & National Book Award 1962: The Reivers, his last novel – winner of Pulitzer Prize

Faulkner published 19 novels during his lifetime and only 5 of them were not set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County: Soldiers’ Pay (set in Charlestown, GA), Mosquitoes (New Orleans), Pylon (set in a thinly disguised New Orleans), The Wild Palms (set primarily in MS and the far West), and A Fable (set in France during World War I).

The United States Postal Service issued a first-class 22-cent stamp commemorating Faulkner in 1987.

Died: July 6, 1962 (age 64) of Thrombosis Faulkner considered himself a farmer first and a writer second. “My life is farmland and horses and the raising of grain and feed. I took up writing simply because I liked it. I look after my farm and my horses and then when there is time I write, or if I have something I want to write, I will find time to write it, but just to be a writer is not my life.”