Noted author William Styron died this week at the age of 81. He was best known for the novels Sophie's Choice and The Confessions of Nat Turner.
The Confessions of Nat Turner, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1968, was his most controversial work. It was an imaginative retelling of the story of Nat Turner, and educated slave who led a rebellion in 1831. As a white man, he was both widely critized and praised for his portrayals. A book of criticism, William Styron's Nat Turner, Ten Black Writers Respond, was published in response to his novel.
His other most famous novel was Sophie's Choice, about an Auschwitz survivor who has settled in America after the war. He won the National Book Award in 1980 for this novel, and it was also made into a film starring Meryl Streep.
For those who would like to more about Styron himself, he was the subject of a biography, William Styron: A Life, by James West. Styron also wrote a memoir dealing with his serious bouts with his depression, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness.
The Somerset County Library System has a wide range of his books, as well as his biography and criticism.
