Soldiers' Pay

William Faulkner is one of the most significant American writers of the twentieth century, but success was elusive with his first novel, Soldiers’ Pay, in 1926. The promising young author had not yet achieved the reputation that would lead to the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature and two Pulitzer Prizes. Soldiers’ Pay reflects Faulkner’s gift for keen observations, embracing his Southern experience, as well as his experimental narrative techniques blended with literary modernism. He captures the post–World War I atmosphere of the Lost Generation on American soil and explores the war’s emotional impact on three weary veterans and their hometown in Georgia.