Two-time American Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Lanier Williams (1911-1983) became world famous under the name Tennessee, given to him by fellow students on account of his accent. He first began writing as a creative outlet from his shyness and reserved character, exploring our interior world with a focus on psychoses, nightmares, fears and redemption. He was inspired by his childhood but the event that marked him most was his sister Rose’s lobotomy at an early age. He suffered from depression, which in combination with alcohol and drug abuse resulted in him being committed to psychiatric hospitals on several occasions. He used these experiences to create characters who were trapped, oppressed, and unable to save themselves. In his works, he presents grotesque situations, while his characters struggle to find meaning in the face of life’s futility. Writing was a great release for him and also his salvation. Indeed, Camino Real is rumoured to have been written in one night. He had great imagination and inventiveness and used naturalistic and expressionistic elements in his works. He was found dead in a hotel room in New York, having choked to death on a plastic bottle cap.

 

A short list of his plays:
The glass menagerie, A streetcar named Desire, The rose tattoo, Camino Real, Cat on a hot tin roof, Suddenly last summer, Sweet bird of youth, The night of the Iguana.

 

The little there is belongs to people who have experienced some sorrow. (A streetcar named Desire)

 

Humankind cannot bear very much reality. (Camino Real)

 

I didn't go to the moon, I went much further - for time is the longest distance between places. (The glass menagerie)