William Styron: William Styron, the author whose novels plunged readers into the dark edges of historical moments, has died of pneumonia in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He was 81.
Styron won most of the major literary awards of the 20th century, including the Pulitzer Prize for The Confessions of Nat Turner, the National Book Award for Sophie's Choice and the National Medal of the Arts for his lifetime body of work.
His 1979 novel about the horrific decision forced on a character during the Nazi reign in Poland, Sophie's Choice, was named one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library editorial board. His 1967 novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner, about the leader of a real slave rebellion, sparked controversy among African American critics who said Styron did not understand the experience of slaves.
His 1990 memoir of depression, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, made him a hero to advocates of destigmatising mental illness.
From the publication of his first novel, Lie Down in Darkness (1951), he was considered to be the logical literary successor to fellow southerner William Faulkner.
Styron's work is characterised by elegant language, characters who grapple with morality and a strong narrative. "A great book should leave you with many experiences and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it," Styron said, in his most widely quoted remark.
His father's Scandinavian family moved from Barbados to North Carolina's Outer Banks to Virginia's Tidewater area almost 300 years ago. His mother's family settled in Pennsylvania about the same time as the Styrons moved ashore. Born in Newport News in Virginia, Styron learned to read before he entered prep school. His mother, who discovered she had breast cancer two years after his birth, died when he was 13, the same year he began writing short stories.
He enrolled at Davidson college in 1942 but spent only a year there, enlisting in the marines by memorising the eye chart to hide his poor vision. He was sent to Duke University, where he was enrolled in the V-12 navy college training programme. Sent for basic training, he landed in the venereal diseases ward of the infirmary with a misdiagnosed case of trench mouth.
His first novel, Lie Down in Darkness, was published to acclaim, winning the Prix de Rome from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a society that later named him one of its 4,000 members.
In 1968, Styron's Confessions of Nat Turner received the Pulitzer Prize, but the introspective and psychological work brought bitter criticism, although he called it a "meditation on history" rather than a historical novel. It is now considered his masterpiece.
He signed many petitions and wrote in defence of president Bill Clinton in December 1998. He became a mentor to prisoner Benjamin Reid, whom he had helped save from execution in 1962. Reid escaped just before his scheduled parole in 1970 and kidnapped and raped a woman as he fled.
Styron tried to resume work on a long-put-off war novel, but his disciplined work schedule broke down as he slipped into depression, which he attributed to the use of prescription medicine that exacerbated an inherited tendency toward melancholy.
He is survived by his wife of more than 50 years, Rose Burgunder Styron, their three daughters and a son.
William Styron: born June 11th, 1925, died November 1st, 2006