William Golding

Sir William Gerald Golding was born on September 19th 1911 in Newquay, Cornwall, England. The son of a science master at Malborough Grammar School, Golding was born into a family that respected scientific rationality and socialism. His mother was also an active campaigner for female suffrage. Golding began attending Brasenose College, Oxford in 1930 where he attained a B.A. Degree in English Literature in 1934. Later that year he was published for the first time as a poet.

He became a schoolmaster in 1939, teaching English and Philosophy. That same year he married an analytical chemist by the name of Ann Brookfield with whom he had two children. In 1940, Golding joined the Royal Navy and fought on board a destroyer ship. He was involved in the sinking of the German battleship, Bismark and participated in Normandy and D-Day.

After the war, Golding began writing again and after suffering some rejection from publishing houses, managed to publish his first novel, "The Lord of the Flies" in September of 1954, following it in succeeding years with with "The Inheritors" and "Pincher Martin". After publishing another book in 1959, Golding achieved enough success that he was able to quit his teaching job and move to the United States and become a writer-in-residence at Hollins College in Virginia. Throughout the 1960s and 70's, Golding continued to publish fiction novels and several plays.

In 1980, he won the Booker Prize and three years later was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his work. In 1988 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

On June 19th of 1993, Golding died suddenly of congestive heart failure. He was scheduled to attend the First International William Golding Conference in France only a few months later.