Reflecting on Sophie's Choice

Published 35 years ago, William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice was met with both critical acclaim and controversy. Watch William Styron’s wife, Rose Styron, his biographer, Professor James L. W. West III, and the author himself as they speak about the obstacles he faced in writing the novel and its lasting legacy in the literary canon. Mixing elements from Styron’s own experience with themes of the Holocaust and the history of slavery in the American South, Sophie’s Choice is a profound and haunting human drama that shows Styron at the pinnacle of his literary brilliance.