Yoknapatawpha County

Faulkner said to a University of Virginia audience that the compound means "water flows slow through flat land."

Yoknapatawpha was the original name for the actual Yocona River, a tributary of the Tallahatchie which runs through the southern part of Lafayette County.

By family surname, they were: Grenier in the southeast, McCaslin in the northeast, Sutpen in the northwest, and Compson and Sartoris in the immediate vicinity of Jefferson.

[4] Charles S. Aiken has examined Faulkner's incorporation of real-life historical and geographical details into the overall presentation of the county.

[9] Faulkner's imaginary county has inspired at least one other Mississippi author to follow his lead: Jesmyn Ward, who is the only woman to win the National Book Award twice for fiction.