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Introduction

As I Lay Dying is a novel by the American author William Faulkner. The novel was written in six weeks while Faulkner was working at a power plant, published in 1930, and described by Faulkner as a "tour de force". It is Faulkner's fifth novel and consistently ranked among the best novels of 20th century literature.^[1][2][3][4] The title derives from Book XI of Homer's The Odyssey, wherein Agamemnon speaks to Odysseus: "As I lay dying, the woman with the dog's eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades."

The novel is known for its stream of consciousness writing technique, multiple narrators, and varying chapter lengths; the shortest chapter in the book consists of just five words.