William Faulkner's Life And Accomplishments

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William Faulkner The twentieth century has dozens of great American writers and William Faulkner is one of the most prominent in this time period. Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi in 1897. Murry Falkner and wife Maud Butler had four boys ; William was the oldest, and then Murry, John, and Dean (“Faulkner, William” vol. 6 n.pag). William led a very interesting life that is evident in his unmistakable style of writing, and his literary works. Faulkner moved to Oxford, Mississippi in 1902 where his father owned a hardware store. His dad later became the business manager for the University of Mississippi. To the people of Oxford, he was “a strange young lad”. William did not perform well in school. After tenth grade, he …show more content…
6 n.pag). They pertain mostly to southern issues, such as slavery and racism. Though many of his works are immensely popular now, they were not at the time. Even though the critics thought his works to be sensational, no one purchased them. Consequently, he and his family moved out to Hollywood, in order to make money writing screenplays. He co-wrote many screenplays including The Road to Glory, a war film released in 1936. William also made Earnest Hemingway’s novel To Have and Have Not into a screenplay. Although he was in Hollywood to write screenplays, his heart belonged to fiction writing. Faulkner published some of his finest works during his time in Hollywood, but it was not until 1950 that he received a Nobel Prize for his literary contributions (“American Decades n.pag). Not only did he receive a Nobel Prize, William also was the recipient of an award from the American Academy of Arts. He was awarded the Howells Medal, the highest honor you can give to a senior writer (“Faulkner, William” vol. 4 n.pag). Because of this, Faulkner became a prominent figure throughout the modernist era, and is now considered one of the foremost twentieth century writers(“William Faulkner” Litfinder