Requiem for a Nun is a book written by William Faulkner in 1951. Like many of Faulkner's works, Requiem experiments with narrative technique—the book is part novel, part play. The protagonist is Temple Drake, a character introduced as a college student in Sanctuary, one of Faulkner's early novels. In Requiem Temple, now married with a child, must learn to deal with her violent, turbulent past as related in Sanctuary. The main narrative, which is presented in dramatic form, is interspersed with prose sections recounting the history of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Requiem for a Nun... is perhaps best known for one of Faulkner's most famous lines, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." This line is often paraphrased, as it was by then Senator Barack Obama in his speech "A More Perfect Union". The novel was dramatized for the theater in 1956 by Albert Camus, entitled Requiem pour une nonne. Camus also wrote the preface to the 1957 French translation of the novel by Maurice Coindreau.
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