External Site: Faulkner at Virginia: An Audio Archive[info]
William Faulkner was writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia in 1957 and 1958. During those two years he gave two addresses, read from eight of his works, and answered over 1400 questions from audiences made up of various groups, ranging from UVA students and faculty members to interested local citizens. These sessions were recorded on reel-to-reel tape recorder and now over 28 hours worth of material from the archives have been digitised, catalogued, transcribed and made freely available in QuickTime format.
Users can browse or search the collection by keyword but anyone seriously interested in exploring the collection will benefit from reading the contextual essay which gives a detailed account of Faulkner’s residence at UVA, the background to the recordings, information on audio quality (which is understandably uneven given the limitations of the technology of the time), transcription methodology, links to essays, photographs, cartoons and a selection of letters from the Faulkner collections at the UVA library.
A curated Clips section presents a selection of highlights from the collection, consisting of over 230 of Faulkner’s responses to audience questions. Most of the questions refer specifically to the novels (nicely illustrated with images of first editions), but Faulkner also has interesting things to say about his career (including writing in Hollywood for Howard Hawks), his opinions of other writers, including James Joyce, Albert Camus and J.D. Salinger and his views on the South and the Civil Rights Movement.