- Born
- Died
- Birth nameWilliam Clark Styron
- William Styron was born on June 11, 1925 in Newport News, Virginia, USA. He was a writer, known for Sophie's Choice (1982), Lie Down in Darkness and Playhouse 90 (1956). He was married to Rose Burgunder. He died on November 1, 2006 in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA.
- SpouseRose Burgunder(April 4, 1953 - November 1, 2006) (his death, 4 children)
- Won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his novel "The Confessions of Nat Turner".
- He was born into a well-to-do family, and decided to become a writer when he was in his teens. His mother died when he was 13, and he attributed some of his later problems to his continuing grief. He served in WWII in the US Marines.
- President of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1983
- He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in 1993 by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington D.C.
- His best-seller "Sophie's Choice" won the American Book Award for fiction in 1980. Meryl Streep won an Oscar for her performance in the 1982 film adaptation (Sophie's Choice (1982)).
- [from a letter to Norman Mailer, 1953] I think I'm arriving at a point which, more and more, I'm conscious of mannerisms and therefore tend to avoid them and go instead more directly to to the point. It's a hell of a hard process, but I take to it more instinctively than the other way around: the brawny method, like a big guy bellowing his way through a crowd.
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