born June 11, 1925, Newport News, Va., U.S.
U.S. novelist.
Educated at Duke University, Styron became part of the American expatriate community in Paris in the 1950s. His first novel, Lie Down in Darkness (1951), tells of a disturbed young woman who commits suicide. His fourth, the controversial Confessions of Nat Turner (1967, Pulitzer Prize), vividly evokes the slavery era. His later work includes Sophie's Choice (1979), examining ramifications of the Holocaust; and Darkness Visible (1990), a nonfiction account of his depression. His works often treat violent themes in a rich, Faulknerian style.