William Styron - Definition and Overview

William Styron is an American novelist, born in Newport News, Virginia on January 11, 1925. His first novel Lie Down in Darkness (1951), which tells the story of a Southern family, was published to overwhelming acclaim. Two years later his short novel, The Long March was published, followed by Set This House on Fire (1960).

He is best known for two controversial novels: The 1968 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), narrated by Nat Turner, the leader of an 1831 Virginia slave revolt, and Sophie's Choice (1979) which deals with the Holocaust.

Darkness Visible (1990) tells the story of his serious clinical depression, which he went through in the summer of 1985. His other works include a play, In the Clap Shack (1973) and a collection of his nonfiction pieces, This Quiet Dust (1982).

He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1968 for The Confessions of Nat Turner.