Novelists, poets, dramatists, historians, biographers, essayists, and philosophers—whether famous or anonymous, many of Western culture's greatest figures have been writers. Ranging from the anonymous author of the Epic of Gilgamesh in ancient Mesopotamia to William Faulkner writing about 19th- and 20th-century Mississippi 3,600 years later, Western writers have each played important parts in establishing the West's rich literary tradition.