| Born | September 25, 1897(1897-09-25) New Albany, Mississippi, United States |
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| Died | July 6, 1962 (aged 64) Byhalia, Mississippi, United States |
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| Occupation | Novelist, short story writer | |
| Genres | Southern Gothic | |
| Literary movement | Modernism, stream of consciousness | |
| Notable work(s) | As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August | |
| Notable award(s) | Nobel Prize in Literature 1949 |
William Faulkner (born William Cuthbert Falkner), (September 25, 1897–July 6, 1962) was an American author. He is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, and was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Faulkner is known for an experimental style with meticulous attention to diction and cadence. In contrast to the minimalist understatement of his peer Ernest Hemingway, Faulkner made frequent use of "stream of consciousness" in his writing, and wrote often highly emotional, subtle, cerebral, complex, and sometimes Gothic or grotesque stories of a wide variety of characters—ranging from former slaves or descendents of slaves, to poor white, agrarian, or working-class Southerners, to Southern aristocrats.
Most of Faulkner's works are set in his native state of Mississippi, and he is considered one of the most important "Southern writers," along with Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, and Truman Capote. While his work was published regularly from the mid 1920s to the late 1940s, he was relatively unknown before receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. Critics and the public now favor his work,[1] and he is widely seen as among the greatest American writers of all time.
Faulkner's fame and acclaim stem from his novels, novellas, and short stories. He was, however, a published poet and a sometime screenwriter as well.