It has taken the dedicated work of professors and academic critics over a period of decades to make sure that Faulkner has an audience. Of course, once properly introduced to him, some of those readers continue to seek out his fiction, which accounts for the continuing interest in even his lesser works.
It fascinates me that Faulkner, a huge beneficiary of the academy’s loving attention, was himself almost phobic when it came to universities and schools, at least until his later years, when he established a fairly comfortable relationship with the University of Virginia.
For the most part, Faulkner shunned academe. He was self-educated, like Ernest Hemingway and so many writers of his generation. —Jay Parini —William Faulkner: ‘Not an Educated Man’ (Chronicle)