After leaving the service, he moved to New York, where he supported his fledgling writing career working at McGraw-Hill Publishing. He also began taking classes with Hiram Haydn at the New School for Social Research. With guidance and encouragement from Haydn, Styron made his stunning debut at the age of twenty-six with LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS (1951). This novel launched his career and earned him the American AcademyÕs Prix de Rome. Told under the shadow of the Hiroshima bombing, LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS charts the tragic descent into suicide of a young woman raised in a troubled Virginia family.

Styron followed LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS with THE LONG MARCH (1957), SET THIS HOUSE ON FIRE (1960), and one of his most famous novels, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER (1967). Published at the height of the civil rights movement, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER is told from the point of view of the historical figure who led a disastrous and bloody slave insurrection which set the stage for the Civil War. Winning a Pulitzer Prize, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER was both praised as a brave look into a rarely represented life, and maligned for what many saw as a clichŽd conception of a black man.

His next novel did not appear for more than ten years. The tragedy of SOPHIEÕS CHOICE (1979) is played out between a young Virginia writer and a Polish Holocaust survivor in an urban Jewish enclave of Brooklyn. It takes place during the aftermath of World War II, an era Styron describes as "a nightmarish Sargasso Sea of guilt and apprehensions." In SOPHIEÕS CHOICE, Styron weaves a fictional tale, profound in its engagement, with major recent historical events. Made into a popular movie starring Meryl Streep, SOPHIEÕS CHOICE returned Styron to the popular eye as both a controversial personality and a major writer.