William Golding

William Golding was born in Cornwall in 1911 and was educated at Marlborough Grammar School and at Brasenose College, Oxford. Apart from writing, his past and present occupations include being a schoolmaster, a lecturer, an actor, a sailor, and a musician. His father was a schoolmaster and his mother was a suffragette. After two years at Oxford he read English literature instead, and became devoted to Anglo-Saxon. He spent five years at Oxford. Published a volume of poems in 1935.. Joined the Royal Navy in 1940 and spent six years afloat, except for seven months in New York and six months helping Lord Cherwell at the Naval Research Establishment. He saw action against battleships (at the sinking of the Bismarck), submarines and aircraft. Finished as Lieutenant in command of a rocket ship. He was present off the French coast for the D-Day invasion, and later at the island of Walcheren. After the war he returned to teaching, and began to write again. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, was published in 1954. It was filmed by Peter Brook in 1963. His other books are:

(Lord of the Flies) 1954 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvmi3oZ_vH8 The Inheritors (novel) 1955

Pincher Martin (novel) 1956

The Brass Butterfly (play) 1958

Free Fall (novel) 1959

The Spire (novel) 1964

The Hot Gates (essays) 1965

The Pyramid (novel) 1967

The Scorpion God (three short novels) 1971

Darkness Visible (novel) 1979

Rites of Passage (novel) 1980

A Moving Target (essays and autobiographical pieces) 1982

The Paper Men (novel) 1984

An Egyptian Journal 1985

Close Quarters (novel) 1987

Fire Down Below (novel) 1989

In 1980 he won the 'Booker Prize' for his novel Rites of Passage