Styron, William Clark (1925-2006)

US novelist. His novels Lie Down in Darkness (1951), The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967, Pulitzer Prize), and Sophie's Choice (1979, filmed 1982) all won critical and popular acclaim.

Confessions caused controversy and protest from black critics for its fictionalization of the leader of a slave revolt in 19th-century Virginia. Sophie's Choice, winner of the 1980 National Book Award, is a poignant and heartwrenching story of a young mother during the Holocaust. Other work includes the short memoir of a descent into serious depression, Darkness Visible (1990) and the autobiographical trilogy A Tidewater Morning (1993).

Born in Virginia, Styron located many of his novels in the South. His other works include a play, In the Clap Shack (1973), and a collection of non-fiction pieces, This Quiet Dust (1982). Throughout the 1990s, Styron continued to write, publish, and edit, authoring Fathers and Daughters: In Their Own Words (1994, with Mariana Ruth Cook) and winning the National Medal of Arts in 1993.