William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature for what are recognized as some of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, among them The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), and * Absalom, Absalom!(1936). For many of his literary chronicles of life in...

William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature for what are recognized as some of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, among them The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), and * Absalom, Absalom!(1936). For many of his literary chronicles of life in the American South, he drew on his native Mississippi, which informed one of his greatest creations, the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, where a number of his novels are set. In addition to the Nobel Prize, he won the National Book Award twice, for Collected Stories (1951) and A Fable (1954), and the Pulitzer Prize twice, for A Fable and The Reivers (1962). Ayana Mathis (introduction) is the author of the New York Times bestselling Oprah's Book Club pick The Twelve Tribes of Hattie and The Unsettled as well as a series of essays for The New York Times * on literature and faith. She teaches writing in Hunter College's MFA program.