William Faulkner

Known for writing about:• Complexities of sexual,

family, social and racial identities

• The pull and burden of the past

Yoknapatawpha County

• Wrote about Mississippi

• Discovered that his “own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about” and could never be exhausted

• Mythical Yoknapatawpha County is setting for 15 of his novels

The Snopes Trilogy

• The Hamlet (1940) about the Snopeses of “Barn Burning”• Two later books, The Town (1957) and The Mansion (1959) complete the

Snopes trilogy

Katherine Anne Porter

• Born and raised in Texas• Initially a journalist• Lived in Mexico as a

young woman; in Europe later on

• Admired for her technical skill, powerful emotions

Ralph Ellison

• Born in Oklahoma• Attended Tuskegee

Institute• Also a musician

Invisible Man

• “Battle Royal” is actually the opening chapter of Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man

• Novel goes on to follow unnamed protagonist to college and later to New York City and finally underground