From Small-Town Struggles to Nobel Prize

Evan Swensen
September 29, 2025

“I believe writing is more than just telling a story—it’s about capturing the human heart in conflict with itself,” William Faulkner once reflected on his craft. The Mississippi-born author, who would become one of America’s most celebrated literary voices, understood writing as an excavation of truth. His most enduring observation—”The past is never dead. It’s not even past”—reveals his central preoccupation: how yesterday’s shadows dance through today’s light, refusing to be buried.

The Weight of Early Rejection

In 1918, twenty-one-year-old Faulkner faced a crushing blow when the U.S. military rejected him for pilot training because he was too short and underweight. The young man from Oxford, Mississippi, had dreamed of flying combat missions in World War I, but his small stature dashed those hopes. Undeterred, he traveled to Canada and successfully enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, though the war ended before he saw combat.

This early rejection planted seeds of determination in Faulkner’s character. He returned home wearing a British uniform, telling elaborate stories about aerial combat he had never experienced. The fiction he spun about his military service became an early lesson in the power of narrative—and perhaps revealed his understanding of how invented stories could feel more real than lived experience. Writing became his battlefield, where he could fight the conflicts the military had denied him.

The Mentor Who Changed Everything

In the early 1920s, Faulkner’s life took a decisive turn when he met Sherwood Anderson in New Orleans. The established author took the struggling young writer under his wing, introducing him to literary circles and encouraging his fiction writing. Anderson’s guidance proved transformative; he convinced Faulkner to abandon his early poetry and focus on prose, specifically urging him to write about his native Mississippi.

“You have to write about your own little patch of ground,” Anderson advised. This counsel led directly to Faulkner’s breakthrough novel Sartoris in 1929, followed by his masterpiece The Sound and the Fury the same year. Anderson’s mentorship demonstrated how one writer’s investment in another can reshape literary history. Without Anderson’s intervention, American literature might have lost one of its most distinctive voices.

Transforming How America Sees Itself

Faulkner’s influence on American society extends far beyond literary circles. His unflinching portrayal of racial tensions in the South, particularly in novels such as Light in August and Go Down, Moses, compelled readers to confront uncomfortable truths about American history. When Intruder in the Dust appeared in 1948, its complex treatment of race relations challenged both Northern assumptions and Southern traditions.

His 1950 Nobel Prize acceptance speech became a cultural watershed moment. Speaking to a world still reeling from World War II and facing nuclear anxiety, Faulkner declared his faith in humanity’s capacity to “endure and prevail.” These words offered hope during one of history’s darkest periods and established him as more than a regional chronicler—he became a voice for universal human resilience.

The Civil Rights Movement later embraced many of Faulkner’s themes, though his personal positions remained complex and sometimes contradictory. His literary excavation of Southern guilt and racial trauma provided intellectual groundwork for conversations about justice and reconciliation.

The Living Legacy

Faulkner’s central insight—about the past’s persistent presence—has proven prophetic. His understanding of how historical trauma echoes through generations now influences fields from psychology to political science. Contemporary writers like Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy clearly draw from Faulknerian techniques of letting the past bleed into present narrative.

His literary innovations, particularly stream-of-consciousness narration and fractured chronology, expanded what fiction could accomplish. As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom! demonstrated how experimental techniques could illuminate rather than obscure human truth.

Writers continue discovering new relevance in Faulkner’s work. His exploration of how communities construct and maintain myths about themselves speaks directly to contemporary discussions about memory, identity, and historical responsibility. In an era when societies worldwide grapple with inherited injustices, Faulkner’s words remind us why confronting the past remains essential.

Call-to-Action

Faulkner’s example proves writing can reshape how entire societies understand themselves. His commitment to excavating uncomfortable truths demonstrates literature’s power to illuminate what we might prefer to leave buried. For aspiring writers, his legacy offers both inspiration and challenge: dig deep into your own patch of ground, confront what you find there, and trust readers to handle the truth.

Pick up The Sound and the Fury or Light in August. Experience how one writer’s dedication to confronting the past created literature capable of changing minds and hearts. Then turn to your own work with renewed purpose—because in our troubled world, we need writers brave enough to remind us why yesterday’s ghosts demand today’s attention.

Stories like these remind us how words shape lives—how they steady us, stir us, and spark change. The Power of Authors, by Evan and Lois Swensen, carries this conviction