William Clark Styron Jr. (June 11, 1925 – November 1, 2006) was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.[1] Styron was best known for his novels, including:

Lie Down in Darkness (1951), his acclaimed first work, published when he was 26; The Confessions of Nat Turner
Nat Turner (1967), narrated by Nat Turner, the leader of an 1831 Virginian slave revolt; Sophie's Choice (1979), a story "told through the eyes of a young aspiring writer from the South, about a Polish Catholic survivor of Auschwitz
Auschwitz and her brilliant but psychotic Jewish lover in postwar Brooklyn".[2]

In 1985, he suffered from his first serious bout with depression. Once he recovered from his illness, Styron was able to write the memoir Darkness Visible (1990), the work he became best known for during the last two decades of his life.

Contents

1 Early years 2 Career

2.1 Military service 2.2 Travels in Europe

3 Nat Turner
Nat Turner controversy 4 Sophie's Choice 5 Darkness Visible 6 Later work and acclaim

6.1 Port Warwick
Port Warwick street names

7 Death 8 Personal life 9 Bibliography 10 Notes 11 References 12 External links and further reading

Early years[edit] Styron was born in the Hilton Village
Hilton Village historic district[3] of Newport News, Virginia, the son of Pauline Margaret (Abraham) and William Clark Styron.[4] He grew up in the South and was steeped in its history. His birthplace was less than a hundred miles from the site of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion, later the source for Styron's most famous and controversial novel. Although Styron’s paternal grandparents had been slave owners, his Northern mother and liberal Southern father gave him a broad perspective on race relations. Styron’s childhood was a difficult one. His father, a shipyard engineer, suffered from clinical depression, which Styron himself would later experience. His mother died from breast cancer in 1939 when Styron was still a boy, following her decade-long battle with the disease. Styron attended public school in Warwick County, first at Hilton School and then at Morrison High School (now known as Warwick High School) for two years, until his father sent him to Christchurch School, an Episcopal college-preparatory school in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Styron once said, "But of all the schools I attended...only Christchurch ever commanded something more than mere respect—which is to say, my true and abiding affection."[5] Upon graduation, Styron enrolled in Davidson College[6] and joined Phi Delta Theta. By the age of eighteen he was reading the writers who would have a lasting influence on his vocation as a novelist and writer, especially Thomas Wolfe.[6] Styron transferred to Duke University in 1943 as a part of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps V-12 program aimed at fast-tracking officer candidates by enrolling them simultaneously in basic training and bachelor's degree programs. There he published his first fiction, a short story heavily influenced by William Faulkner, in an anthology of student work[citation needed]. Styron published several short stories in the University literary magazine, The Archive, between 1944 and 1946.[7] Though Styron was made a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, the Japanese surrendered before his ship left San Francisco. After the war, he returned to full-time studies at Duke and completed his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in English in 1947.[7] Career[edit] After graduation, Styron took an editing position with McGraw-Hill
McGraw-Hill in New York City. Styron later recalled the misery of this work in an autobiographical passage of Sophie’s Choice. After provoking his employers into firing him, he set about writing his first novel in earnest. Three years later, he published the novel, Lie Down in Darkness (1951), the story of a dysfunctional Virginia
Virginia family. The novel received overwhelming critical acclaim. For this novel, Styron received the prestigious Rome Prize, awarded by the American Academy in Rome and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Military service[edit] His recall into the military due to the Korean War
Korean War prevented him from immediately accepting the Rome Prize. Styron joined the Marine Corps, but was discharged in 1952 for eye problems. However, he was to transform his experience at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina into his short novel, The Long March, published serially the following year. This was adapted for the Playhouse 90 episode The Long March in 1958. Travels in Europe[edit] Styron spent an extended period in Europe. In Paris, he became friends with writers Romain Gary, George Plimpton, Peter Matthiessen, James Baldwin, James Jones and Irwin Shaw, among others. In 1953, the group founded the magazine Paris
Paris Review, which became a celebrated literary journal.[6] The year 1953 was eventful for Styron in another way. Finally able to take advantage of his Rome Prize, he traveled to Italy, where he became friends with Truman Capote. At the American Academy, he renewed an acquaintance with a young Baltimore
Baltimore poet, Rose Burgunder, to whom he had been introduced the previous fall at Johns Hopkins University. They were married in Rome in the spring of 1953. Some of Styron’s experiences during this period inspired his third published book Set This House on Fire (1960), a novel about intellectual American expatriates on the Amalfi coast of Italy. The novel received mixed reviews in the United States, although its publisher considered it successful in terms of sales. In Europe its translation into French achieved best-seller status, far outselling the American edition. Nat Turner
Nat Turner controversy[edit] Styron's next two novels, published between 1967 and 1979, sparked much controversy. Feeling wounded by his first truly harsh reviews[citation needed], for Set This House on Fire, Styron spent the years after its publication researching and writing his next novel, the fictitious memoirs of the historical Nathaniel "Nat" Turner, a slave who led a slave rebellion in 1831. During the 1960s, Styron became an eyewitness to another time of rebellion in the United States, living and writing at the heart of that turbulent decade, a time highlighted by the counterculture revolution with its political struggle, civil unrest, and racial tension. The public response to this social upheaval was furious and intense: battle lines were being drawn. In 1968, Styron signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, a vow refusing to pay taxes as a protest against the Vietnam War.[8] In this atmosphere of dissent, many[who?] had criticized Styron's friend James Baldwin for his novel Another Country, published in 1962. Among the criticisms was outrage over a black author choosing a white woman as the protagonist in a story that tells of her involvement with a black man. Baldwin was Styron's house guest for several months following the critical storm generated by Another Country. During that time, he read early drafts of Styron's new novel, and predicted that Styron's book would face even harsher scrutiny than Another Country. "Bill's going to catch it from both sides," he told an interviewer immediately following the 1967 publication of The Confessions of Nat Turner. Baldwin's prediction was correct, and despite public defenses of Styron by leading artists of the time, including Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, numerous other black critics reviled Styron's portrayal of Turner as racist stereotyping. The historian and critic John Henrik Clarke edited and contributed to a polemical anthology, William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond, published in 1968 by Beacon Press. Particularly controversial was a passage in which Turner fantasizes about raping a white woman. Styron also writes of a situation where Turner and another slave boy have a homosexual encounter while alone in the woods. Several critics pointed to this as a dangerous perpetuation of a traditional Southern justification for lynching. Despite the controversy, the novel was a runaway critical and financial success, and won both the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction,[9] and the William Dean Howells Medal in 1970. Sophie's Choice[edit] Styron's next novel, Sophie's Choice (1979), also generated significant controversy, in part due to Styron's decision to portray a non-Jewish victim of the Holocaust
Holocaust and in part due to its explicit sexuality and profanity. It was banned in South Africa, censored in the Soviet Union, and banned in Poland for "its unflinching portrait of Polish anti-Semitism"[10] It has also been banned in some high schools in the United States.[11] The novel tells the story of Sophie (a Polish Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic who survived Auschwitz), Nathan (her brilliant Jewish lover who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia), and Stingo (a Southern transplant in post-World War II- Brooklyn
Brooklyn who was in love with Sophie). It won the 1980 National Book Award[12][a] and was a nationwide bestseller. A 1982 film version was nominated for five Academy Awards, with Meryl Streep winning the Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Sophie. Kevin Kline
Kevin Kline and Peter MacNicol played Nathan and Stingo, respectively. Darkness Visible[edit] Styron's readership expanded with the publication of Darkness Visible in 1990. This memoir, which began as a magazine article, chronicles the author's descent into depression and his near-fatal night of "despair beyond despair".[13] It is a first-hand account of a major depressive episode and challenged the modern taboo on acknowledging such issues. The memoir's goals included increasing knowledge and decreasing stigmatization of major depressive disorders and suicide. It explored the phenomenology of the disease among sufferers, their loved ones, and the general public as well. Earlier, in December 1989, Styron had written an op-ed for The New York Times
The New York Times responding to the disappointment and mystification among scholars about the apparent suicide of Primo Levi, the remarkable Italian writer who survived the Nazi death camps, but apparently fell victim to depression in his final years. Reportedly, it was the public's unsympathetic response to Levi's death that impelled Styron to take a more active role as an advocate for educating the public about the nature of depression and the role it played in mental health and suicide.[6] Styron noted in an article for Vanity Fair that "the pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain. Through the healing process of time—and through medical intervention or hospitalization in many cases—most people survive depression, which may be its only blessing; but to the tragic legion who are compelled to destroy themselves there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of terminal cancer."[14] Later work and acclaim[edit] Styron was awarded the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates.[15][16] Styron was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca in 1985. His short story "Shadrach" was filmed in 1998, under the same title. It was co-directed by his daughter Susanna Styron. Other works published during his lifetime include the play In the Clap Shack (1973), and a collection of his nonfiction, This Quiet Dust (1982). French President François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand invited Styron to his first Presidential inauguration, and later made him a Commander of the Legion of Honor.[17] In 1993, Styron was awarded the National Medal of Arts.[18] In 2002 an opera by Nicholas Maw
Nicholas Maw based on Sophie's Choice premièred at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London. Maw wrote the libretto and composed the music. He had approached Styron about writing the libretto, but Styron declined. Later the opera received a new production by stage director Markus Bothe at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Volksoper Wien, and had its North American premiere at the Washington National Opera
Washington National Opera in October 2006.[2] A collection of Styron's papers and records is housed at the Rubenstein Library, Duke University.[7] In 1996 William Styron
William Styron received the 1st Fitzgerald Award on the centenary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s birth. The F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature award is given annually in Rockville Maryland, the city where Fitzgerald, his wife, and his daughter are buried, as part of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival. Port Warwick
Port Warwick street names[edit] The Port Warwick
Port Warwick neighborhood of Newport News, Virginia, was named after the fictional city in Styron's Lie Down in Darkness. The neighborhood describes itself as a "mixed-use new urbanism development." The most prominent feature of Port Warwick
Port Warwick is William Styron Square along with its two main boulevards, Loftis Boulevard
Boulevard and Nat Turner
Nat Turner Boulevard, named after characters in Styron's novels. Styron himself was appointed to design a naming system for Port Warwick, deciding to "honor great American writers", resulting in Philip Roth
Philip Roth Street, Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Wolfe Street, Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor Street, Herman Melville
Herman Melville Avenue and others.[19] Death[edit] Styron died from pneumonia on November 1, 2006, at age 81 in Martha's Vineyard. He is buried at West Chop
West Chop Cemetery in Vineyard Haven, Dukes County, Massachusetts.[20] Personal life[edit] While doing a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, Styron renewed a passing acquaintance with young Baltimore
Baltimore poet Rose Burgunder. They married in Rome in the spring of 1953. Together, they had four children: daughter Susanna Styron is a film director; daughter Paola is an internationally acclaimed modern dancer; daughter Alexandra is a writer, known for the 2001 novel All The Finest Girls and 2011 memoir Reading My Father: A Memoir; son Thomas is a professor of clinical psychology at Yale University. Bibliography[edit] Note - the following is a list of the first American editions of Styron's books

Lie Down in Darkness. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1951. The Long March. New York: Random House, 1956.[21] Set This House on Fire. New York: Random House, 1960 The Confessions of Nat Turner. New York: Random House, 1967. In the Clap Shack. New York: Random House, 1973. Sophie's Choice. New York: Random House, 1979. Shadrach. Los Angeles: Sylvester & Orphanos, 1979. This Quiet Dust and Other Writings. New York: Random House, 1982. Expanded edition, New York: Vintage, 1993. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. New York: Random House, 1990. A Tidewater Morning: Three Tales from Youth. New York: Random House, 1993 Inheritance of Night: Early Drafts of Lie Down in Darkness. Preface by William Styron. Ed. James L. W. West III. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1993. Havanas in Camelot: Personal Essays. New York: Random House, 2008. The Suicide Run: Fives Tales of the Marine Corps. New York: Random House, 2009. Selected Letters of William Styron. Edited by Rose Styron, with R. Blakeslee Gilpin. New York: Random House, 2012. My Generation: Collected Nonfiction. Edited by James L.W. I West III. New York: Random House, 2015.

Notes[edit]

^ This was the 1980 award for hardcover general Fiction. From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Awards history there were dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories, and multiple fiction categories, especially in 1980. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including the 1980 general Fiction.

References[edit]

^ Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (November 2, 2006). "William Styron, Novelist, Dies at 81". The New York Times.  ^ a b Kozinn, Allan (May 19, 2009). "Nicholas Maw, British Composer, Is Dead at 73". The New York Times. Retrieved December 28, 2010.  ^ The Return of a Village Histon'S Boosters See Potential In Its Quaint Wwi Structures ^ https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/books/02styron.html ^ http://articles.dailypress.com/1990-07-01/news/9006280277_1_classmate-teachers-principal ^ a b c d Eric Homberger. "Obituary: William Styron". the Guardian. Retrieved November 19, 2014.  ^ a b c " William Styron
William Styron Papers, 1855-2007 and undated". Rubenstein Library, Duke University.  ^ "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" January 30, 1968 New York Post ^ Confessions of Nat Turner, Amazon.com ^ Sirlin, Rhoda and West III, James L. W. Sophie's Choice: A Contemporary Casebook. Newcastle UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. p. ix. http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/60485. Accessed January 5, 2013. ^ Helfand, Duke. "Students Fight for 'Sophie's Choice" Los Angeles Times. December 22, 2001. Accessed January 5, 2013. ^ "National Book Awards – 1980". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-15. (With essay by Robert Weil from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog. ^ Michiko Kakutani (November 3, 2006). "Styron Visible: Naming the Evils That Humans Do". The New York Times.  ^ Styron, William (December 1989). "Darkness Visible". Vanity Fair. Retrieved April 11, 2013.  ^ Website of St. Louis Literary Award ^ Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University Library Associates. "Recipients of the Saint Louis Literary Award". Retrieved July 25, 2016.  ^ "William Styron, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author". ShopHiltonVillage.com. Retrieved December 20, 2010.  ^ "Lifetime Honors - National Medal of Arts". Nea.gov. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved June 18, 2011.  ^ "William Styron". Portwarwick.com. Retrieved January 29, 2018.  ^ " William Styron
William Styron Find A Grave". Findagrave.com. Retrieved June 18, 2011.  ^ 1952 (serial), 1956 (book)

External links and further reading[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: William Styron

Peter Matthiessen
Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton
George Plimpton (Spring 1954). "William Styron, The Art of Fiction No. 5". The Paris
Paris Review.  George Plimpton
George Plimpton (Spring 1999). "William Styron, The Art of Fiction No. 156". The Paris
Paris Review.  James Campbell, "Tidewater traumas", The Guardian Unlimited website William Styron
William Styron on IMDb Kenneth S. Greenberg, ed. Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. xix + 289 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-513404-9 (cloth); ISBN 978-0-19-517756-5 (paper). James L. W. West III [editor], Conversations with William Styron, Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 1985. ISBN 0-87805-260-7. James L. W. West III, William Styron: A Life, New York: Random House, 1998. ISBN 0-679-41054-6 Charlie Rose with William Styron, A discussion about mental illness, 50-minute interview William Styron
William Styron interview with William Waterway Marks on "The Vineyard Voice"/1989/covers a range of topics. "An Appreciation of William Styron", Charlie Rose, - 55-minute-long video A Conversation with William Styron
William Styron on-line reprint of interview published in Humanities, 18,3 (1997), William Styron
William Styron interview on Martha's Vineyard, William Styron interview by author and TV host William Waterway Marks with rare photo of Styron sitting at desk in his island writing studio. Michael Lackey, "The Theology of Nazi Anti-Semitism in William Styron's Sophie's Choice," Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory, 22,4 (2011), 277-300. KCRW Bookworm Interview A memoir of life with Styron by his writer daughter, Alexandra Styron. Stuart Wright Collection: William Styron
William Styron Papers (#1169-011), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University

v t e

National Book Award for Fiction (1975–1999)

Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone (1975) The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams (1975) J R
J R by William Gaddis
William Gaddis (1976) The Spectator Bird
The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
Wallace Stegner (1977) Blood Tie by Mary Lee Settle (1978) Going After Cacciato
Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien (1979) Sophie's Choice by William Styron
William Styron (1980) The World According to Garp
The World According to Garp by John Irving
John Irving (1980) Plains Song: For Female Voices by Wright Morris (1981) The Stories of John Cheever
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
John Cheever (1981) Rabbit Is Rich
Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
John Updike (1982) So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell (1982) The Color Purple
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Alice Walker (1983) The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
Eudora Welty (1983) Victory Over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist
Ellen Gilchrist (1984) White Noise by Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo (1985) World's Fair by E. L. Doctorow
E. L. Doctorow (1986) Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann (1987) Paris
Paris Trout by Pete Dexter (1988) Spartina by John Casey (1989) Middle Passage by Charles Johnson (1990) Mating by Norman Rush (1991) All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy (1992) The Shipping News
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
Annie Proulx (1993) A Frolic of His Own
A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis
William Gaddis (1994) Sabbath's Theater
Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth
Philip Roth (1995) Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett (1996) Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (1997) Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Alice McDermott (1998) Waiting by Ha Jin
Ha Jin (1999)

Complete list (1950–1974) (1975–1999) (2000–2024)

v t e

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

1918–1925

His Family
His Family by Ernest Poole
Ernest Poole (1918) The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington (1919) The Age of Innocence
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton (1921) Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington (1922) One of Ours
One of Ours by Willa Cather
Willa Cather (1923) The Able McLaughlins
The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson (1924) So Big by Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber (1925)

1926–1950

Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis (declined) (1926) Early Autumn
Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
Louis Bromfield (1927) The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Thornton Wilder (1928) Scarlet Sister Mary
Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin (1929) Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge (1930) Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes (1931) The Good Earth
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Pearl S. Buck (1932) The Store
The Store by Thomas Sigismund Stribling
Thomas Sigismund Stribling (1933) Lamb in His Bosom
Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Pafford Miller
Caroline Pafford Miller (1934) Now in November
Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson (1935) Honey in the Horn
Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis (1936) Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Mitchell (1937) The Late George Apley
The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand (1938) The Yearling
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1939) The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck (1940) In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
Ellen Glasgow (1942) Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair (1943) Journey in the Dark
Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin (1944) A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
John Hersey (1945) All the King's Men
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren (1947) Tales of the South Pacific
Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
James A. Michener (1948) Guard of Honor
Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens (1949) The Way West
The Way West by A. B. Guthrie Jr. (1950)

1951–1975

The Town by Conrad Richter (1951) The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk (1952) The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway (1953) A Fable
A Fable by William Faulkner
William Faulkner (1955) Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
MacKinlay Kantor (1956) A Death in the Family
A Death in the Family by James Agee
James Agee (1958) The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters
The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor (1959) Advise and Consent
Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
Allen Drury (1960) To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Harper Lee (1961) The Edge of Sadness
The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor (1962) The Reivers
The Reivers by William Faulkner
William Faulkner (1963) The Keepers of the House
The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau (1965) The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter (1966) The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud (1967) The Confessions of Nat Turner
Nat Turner by William Styron
William Styron (1968) House Made of Dawn
House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
N. Scott Momaday (1969) The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
Jean Stafford (1970) Angle of Repose
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
Wallace Stegner (1972) The Optimist's Daughter
The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
Eudora Welty (1973) The Killer Angels
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (1975)

1976–2000

Humboldt's Gift
Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow (1976) Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
James Alan McPherson (1978) The Stories of John Cheever
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
John Cheever (1979) The Executioner's Song
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer (1980) A Confederacy of Dunces
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
John Kennedy Toole (1981) Rabbit Is Rich
Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
John Updike (1982) The Color Purple
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Alice Walker (1983) Ironweed by William Kennedy (1984) Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie (1985) Lonesome Dove
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Larry McMurtry (1986) A Summons to Memphis
A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (1987) Beloved by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison (1988) Breathing Lessons
Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1989) The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos (1990) Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
John Updike (1991) A Thousand Acres
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley (1992) A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
Robert Olen Butler (1993) The Shipping News
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
Annie Proulx (1994) The Stone Diaries
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (1995) Independence Day by Richard Ford
Richard Ford (1996) Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (1997) American Pastoral
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
Philip Roth (1998) The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham (1999) Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)

2001–present

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon (2001) Empire Falls
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Richard Russo (2002) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Eugenides (2003) The Known World
The Known World by Edward P. Jones (2004) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Marilynne Robinson (2005) March by Geraldine Brooks (2006) The Road
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy (2007) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz (2008) Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout (2009) Tinkers by Paul Harding (2010) A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan (2011) No award given (2012) The Orphan Master's Son
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (2013) The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2014) All the Light We Cannot See
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Anthony Doerr (2015) The Sympathizer
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Viet Thanh Nguyen (2016) The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead (2017)

v t e

Cannes Film Festival jury presidents

1946–1975

Georges Huisman (1946) Georges Huisman (1947) Georges Huisman (1949) André Maurois
André Maurois (1951) Maurice Genevoix
Maurice Genevoix (1952) Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau (1953) Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau (1954) Marcel Pagnol
Marcel Pagnol (1955) Maurice Lehmann
Maurice Lehmann (1956) André Maurois
André Maurois (1957) Marcel Achard (1958) Marcel Achard (1959) Georges Simenon
Georges Simenon (1960) Jean Giono (1961) Tetsurō Furukaki (1962) Armand Salacrou (1963) Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang (1964) Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland (1965) Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren (1966) Alessandro Blasetti (1967) André Chamson
André Chamson (1968) Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti (1969) Miguel Ángel Asturias
Miguel Ángel Asturias (1970) Michèle Morgan
Michèle Morgan (1971) Joseph Losey
Joseph Losey (1972) Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman (1973) René Clair
René Clair (1974) Jeanne Moreau
Jeanne Moreau (1975)

1975–2000

Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams (1976) Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini (1977) Alan J. Pakula
Alan J. Pakula (1978) Françoise Sagan
Françoise Sagan (1979) Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas (1980) Jacques Deray (1981) Giorgio Strehler (1982) William Styron
William Styron (1983) Dirk Bogarde
Dirk Bogarde (1984) Miloš Forman
Miloš Forman (1985) Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack (1986) Yves Montand
Yves Montand (1987) Ettore Scola
Ettore Scola (1988) Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders (1989) Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci (1990) Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski (1991) Gérard Depardieu
Gérard Depardieu (1992) Louis Malle
Louis Malle (1993) Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood (1994) Jeanne Moreau
Jeanne Moreau (1995) Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola (1996) Isabelle Adjani
Isabelle Adjani (1997) Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese (1998) David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg (1999) Luc Besson
Luc Besson (2000)

2001–present

Liv Ullmann
Liv Ullmann (2001) David Lynch
David Lynch (2002) Patrice Chéreau
Patrice Chéreau (2003) Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino (2004) Emir Kusturica
Emir Kusturica (2005) Wong Kar-wai
Wong Kar-wai (2006) Stephen Frears
Stephen Frears (2007) Sean Penn
Sean Penn (2008) Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Huppert (2009) Tim Burton
Tim Burton (2010) Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro (2011) Nanni Moretti
Nanni Moretti (2012) Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg (2013) Jane Campion
Jane Campion (2014) Joel and Ethan Coen (2015) George Miller (2016) Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar (2017) Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett (2018)

Authority control

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