Thomas Wolfe
(OCT. 3, 1900 -- SEPT. 15, 1938)
When I taught graduate seminars in Southern literature, I tried at the outset to make the point that home/setting/the South are synonymous concepts in (almost) all Southern fiction, that if you try to place the stories in some other region or country you will find that it just doesnt'work. Then I would be forced to admit that one major Southern writer wrote about leaving the South. Thomas Wolfe described where he lived (Asheville, NC) as a place hemmed in by mountains, cut off from the world, and he said better than anybody else that once you leave home you cannot go back.
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