■ United States
William Styron dies at 81
William Styron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist whose explorations of the darkest corners of the human mind and experience were charged by his own near-suicidal demons, died on Wednesday in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He was 81. Styron's daughter, Alex-andra, said the author died of pneumonia. Styron had been in failing health for a long time. His obsessions with race, class and personal guilt led to such tormented narratives as Lie Down in Darkness and The Confessions of Nat Turner, which won the Pulitzer despite protests that the book was racist and inaccurate. His best-known work was Sophie's Choice, the award-winning novel about a Holocaust survivor.
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