Born in 1897 and raised in Oxford, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life, William Faulkner was one of the towering figures of American literature. He is the author of the novels The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, and As I Lay Dying, among many other remarkable books. Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 and France’s Legion of Honor in 1951. He died in 1962.