William Styron

William Clark Styron Jr June 11 1925 November 1 2006 was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work Styron was best known for his novels including Lie Down in Darkness 1951 his acclaimed first work published when he was 26 The Confessions of Nat Turner 1967 narrated by Nat Turner the leader of an 1831 Virginia slave revolt Sophies Choice 1979 a story told through the eyes of a young aspiring writer from the South about a Polish Catholic survivor of Auschwitz and her brilliant but psychotic Jewish lover in postwar Brooklyn In 1985 he had his first serious bout with depression Once he recovered from his illness Styron was able to write the memoir Darkness Visible 1990 the work for which he became best known during the last two decades of his life Styron was born in the Hilton Village historic district of Newport News Virginia the son of Pauline Margaret Abraham and William Clark Styron He grew up in the South and was steeped in its history His birthplace was less than a hundred miles from the site of Nat Turners slave rebellion later the source for Styrons most famous and controversial novel Styrons Northern mother and liberal Southern father gave him a broad perspective on race relations Styrons childhood was a difficult one His father a shipyard engineer had clinical depression which Styron himself would later experience His mother died from breast cancer in 1939 when Styron was still a boy following her decadelong battle with the disease Styron attended public school in Warwick County first at Hilton School and then at Morrison High School now known as Warwick High School for two years until his father sent him to Christchurch School an Episcopal collegepreparatory school in the Tidewater region of Virginia Styron once said But of all the schools I attendedonly Christchurch ever commanded something more than mere respectwhich is to say my true and abiding affection Upon graduation Styron enrolled in Davidson College and joined Phi Delta Theta By the age of eighteen he was reading the writers who would have a lasting influence on his vocation as a novelist and writer especially Thomas Wolfe Styron transferred to Duke University in 1943 as a part of the US Navy and Marine Corps V12 program aimed at fasttracking officer candidates by enrolling them simultaneously in basic training and bachelors degree programs There he published his first fiction a short story heavily influenced by William Faulkner in an anthology of student work Styron published several short stories in the university literary magazine The Archive between 1944 and 1946 Though Styron was made a lieutenant in the US Marine Corps the Japanese surrendered before his ship left San Francisco After the war he returned to fulltime studies at Duke and completed his Bachelor of Arts BA in English in 1947 Source Article William Styron from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30