In August of 1986 at Graves County High School in Kentucky, a 16-year old student returned home and related to his mother that he was being asked to read a book about reincarnation. So why would such an important and inspirational novel be the subject of banning attempts? Reasons include “God’s name being used in vain”, abortion, profanity, promoting secular humanism, and obscenity. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked As I Lay Dying 35th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The Grammy-nominated music group, As I Lay Dying, is also named after this influential novel. Since then, this classic American tale has gone on to directly influence a number of other critically-celebrated works, including Graham Swift’s Last Orders and Suzan-Lori Parks’ Getting Mother’s Body: a Novel. The story is told, in turn, by each of the family members- including Addie herself the often soulful narratives in the novel shift at times from dark comedy to deepest tragedy.įaulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 for his novels prior to that date, among them As I Lay Dying. The title derives from Book XI of Homer’s The Odyssey, when Agamemnon says to Odysseus: “As I lay dying, the woman with the dog’s eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades.”Īs I Lay Dying is Faulkner’s disturbing account of the Bundren family’s journey to bury Addie, their wife and mother in Jefferson, Mississippi, as she requested. William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 and the Pulitzer Prize for The Reivers just before his death in July1962.As I Lay Dying, by American author William Faulkner, was published in 1930. During the 1930s, he worked in Hollywood on film scripts, notably The Blue Lamp, co-written with Raymond Chandler. As I Lay Dying (1930), Sanctuary (1931), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom! (1936) and The Wild Palms (1939) are the key works of his great creative period leading up to Intruder in the Dust (1948). His first book of verse and early novels followed, but his major work began with the publication of The Sound and the Fury in 1929. His first poem was published in The New Republic in 1919.

Returning home, he studied at the University of Mississippi and visited Europe briefly in 1925. Rejected by the US military in 1915, he joined the Canadian flyers with the RAF, but was still in training when the war ended. He grew up in Oxford, Mississippi, and left high school at fifteen to work in his grandfather's bank. Born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, William Faulkner was the son of a family proud of their prominent role in the history of the south.

As i lay dying author