American · 1897–1962
William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 for "his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel." The Mississippi writer invented Yoknapatawpha County and populated it with generations of families destroyed by slavery, war, and the South's refusal to change. "The Sound and the Fury" (1929), "As I Lay Dying" (1930), "Absalom, Absalom!" (1936)—each novel pushed technique further. Faulkner won two Pulitzer Prizes and worked in Hollywood between masterpieces.