Conversations with William Faulkner

About this book

William Faulkner was not keen on giving interviews. More often than not, he refused, as when he wrote an aspiring interviewer in 1950, "Sorry but no. Am violently opposed to interviews and publicity." Yet in the course of his prolific writing career, the truth is that he submitted to the ordeal on numerous occasions in the United States and abroad. Ranging from 1916, when he was a shabbily dressed young Bohemian poet, to the last year of his life, when he was putting finishing touches on his final novel The Reivers, they are collected here for the first time. Many of these interviews and profiles provide descriptions of Faulkner, his home, and his daily world. They report not only on the things that he said but also on the attitudes and poses he adopted. Some capture him making up tall tales about himself, several of which gained credibility and became a part of the Faulkner mythology.