Set in fictitious Yoknapatawpha County, the backdrop for many of William Faulkner's other novels, Sanctuary and Requiem for a Nun recount the tumultuous and tragic life of Temple Drake. In the 1931 novel Sanctuary, Temple is a student at Ole Miss university when her idyllic life is altered after she is sexually assaulted by the criminal Popeye. Faulkner revisits Temple, now a married mother in Requiem for a Nun, as she awaits the execution of her child's murderer. Beginning with the judgment of the death sentence, Faulkner's taut narrative focuses on how one's past can impact the future of an entire family.

William Faulkner was a relatively unknown author until he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. Since then, he has become recognized for his candid and sometimes controversial writing on life in the American South. Published in 1931, Sanctuary established William Faulkner's literary reputation, and, because of its subject matter, continues to be considered one of his more controversial novels.

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