*As I Lay Dying* | William Faulkner, Beijing United Publishing Co.

In 1929, William Faulkner vowed: "I will write this book, and it will either make me or break me." He crafted this masterpiece in just six weeks: As I Lay Dying. The title is taken from Odysseus, when Agamemnon, after being murdered by his wife, delivers his lines as his soul reaches the underworld.

As I Lay Dying brought Faulkner instant fame and is one of the key novels in his "Yoknapatawpha Saga." The novel is composed of fifty-nine internal monologues, telling from multiple perspectives the "arduous journey" of the Southern American farmer Anse Bundren, who, to honor a promise to his wife, leads his family to transport her body back to her hometown for burial. It is acclaimed as "the most brilliant opening to a 20th-century American novel."