Books by William Styron

In this extraordinary novel, Stingo, an inexperienced twenty-two year old Southerner, takes us back to the summer of 1947 and a boarding house in a leafy Brooklyn suburb. Ultimately, he arrives at the dark core of Sophie's past: her memories of pre-war Poland, the concentration camp and - the essence of her terrible secret - her choice.

Sommeren 1947 på et billigt pensionat i Brooklyn. Stingo, en håbefuld ung forfatter fra Virginia, begynder at skrive på sin første bog. Hans fantasi stimuleres betydeligt af en voldsomt knirkende seng i værelset ovenpå. Der elsker den smukke polske Sophie med sin amerikanske ven Nathan - når de da ikke skændes så det brager. Skænderierne handler altid om den skyld, de hver især bærer på. Sophie, på grund af den måde hun overlevede nazisternes dødslejre på. Nathan, fordi han som amerikansk jøde har levet et trygt liv i USA.Pressen skrev:"En fremragende roman. Gør som millioner allerede har gjort rundt om i verden: læs den.« Politiken"En gribende roman« Weekendavisen"En funklende og strålende roman, der i et utroligt tempo fortæller historien om svinehunden på begge sider af pigtråden.« Berlingske  

How does a writer compose a suicide note? This was not a question that the prize-winning novelist had ever contemplated before. In this true account of his depression, he describes an illness that reduced him from a successful writer to a man arranging his own destruction.

In This Quiet Dust, the first book of non-fiction by the Pulitzer Prize-wining author of Lie Down in Darkness and Sophie's Choice, William Styron addresses great moral issues with passion and precision.

In the blaze of a Carolina summer, among the poison ivy and loblolly pines, eight Marines are killed almost casually by misfired mortar shells. Deciding that his battalion has been 'doping off', Colonel Templeton calls for a 36-mile forced march to inculcate discipline.

Includes stories that are set in the gruelling camps and sweltering training fields that marked the limbo point between civilian life and the horrors of war. This collection focuses on young men who, always conscious of the imminence of action, try to maintain their sanity in the wake of their abrupt removalfrom normal life.

"It's fascinating for me to read, for the first time in over forty years, the stumbling starts toward the creation of "Lie Down in Darkness." These passages show how, in my early twenties, I may have been in possession of a luminous vision for a novel but how it was a luminosity clouded by much indecision and awkwardness. . . . "Inheritance of Night," then, is made up of fragments of a beginning, bits of fruitful inspiration mingled with conceits that were stillborn."--William Styron, from the Preface

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEIn 1831 Nat Turner awaits death in a Virginia jail cell. He is a slave, a preacher, and the leader of the only effective slave revolt in the history of 'that peculiar institution'.

In this brilliant collection of 'long short stories', the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sophie's Choice returns to the coastal Virginia setting of his first novels. Through the eyes of a man recollecting three episodes from his youth, William Styron explores with new eloquence death, loss, war and racism.

This is a story of depression a condition that reduced William Styron from a person enjoying life and success as an acclaimed writer, to a man engulfed and menaced by mental anguish.

The day after Peter Leverett met his old friend Mason Flagg in Italy, Mason was found dead.

In this novel, the South looms dark and ominous in the background with its Biblical rhetoric, its conflict between a tradition of religious fundamentalism and modern scepticism, racial contrasts and the industrialisation of a rural society.