Pultizer Prize-winning author William Styron has died at age 81 at a hospital in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. His personal demons, guilt and suicidal thoughts were often reflected in his writing. Styron’s memoir states, “I had not conceived precisely how my end would come. In short, I was still keeping the idea of suicide at bay.”
Styron is famous for authoring “The Confessions of Nat Turner” and “Lie Down in Darkness.” The 1968 book, “William Styron’s Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond” condemned his work. Protesters thought the Protestant Southerner had no right in trying to understand the mindset of an African Slave. Despite being protested for racism and falsities, “The Confessions of Nat Turner” won Styron the Pulitzer Prize.
“Sophie’s Choice,” a novel about a Holocaust survivor from Poland, was his last full length novel, published in 1979. He also came under criticism for trying to understand the mind of a Jewish woman who had survived concentration camps.
Styron often found himself involved in public causes such as supporting human rights for Jews in the Soviet Union. In 2002 he was awarded the third annual witness to Justice Award by the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation.
William Styron is considered one of the leading writers of his generation.
