William Styron, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, dies at age 81

William Styron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist whose skillful explorations of the themes of evil, domination and redemption made him one of the finest writers of his generation, died Wednesday at age 81.

Mr. Styron, the author of "The Confessions of Nat Turner," "Sophie's Choice" and "Lie Down in Darkness," died of pneumonia at Martha's Vineyard Hospital in Massachusetts, according to his daughter Alexandra Styron.

In addition to his literary skills, Mr. Styron was well known for his public battle with severe depression. His open, searching and personal accounts did much to heighten awareness of the condition.

Mr. Styron's novels were imbued with a tragic sense of history and usually were set in his native South or at least featured a central Southern character.

A painstaking writer who wrote at most a page and a half a day on yellow legal pads, Mr. Styron produced fewer than a dozen novels. His modest output, however, won him the Pulitzer Prize, the American Book Award and the Howells Medal.

It was "The Confessions of Nat Turner" that established Mr. Styron as a force in American literature. His fourth novel garnered the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

"He was very much in the Faulkner tradition," novelist Tom Wolfe said Wednesday. "He very much had Faulkner's ability to create a mood. You could read 10 pages of Styron and find yourself, without even knowing it, in very deep water."

Mr. Styron is survived by his wife, Rose; children Alexandra, Susanna, Paola and Thomas; and eight grandchildren.