William Faulkner was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet. He was born on September 25, 1897, in New Albany, Mississippi, and died on July 6, 1962, in Byhalia, Mississippi. He is known for his novels set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, including "The Sound and the Fury," "As I Lay Dying," and "Absalom, Absalom!" Faulkner is considered one of the most important and influential writers in American literature, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949.