Profile of William Golding on Famous Like Me

Sir William Gerald Golding (September 19, 1911 – June 19, 1993) was an English novelist, poet and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1983) "for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today."

Early life

Born on September 19, 1911 at St Columb Minor, a village near Newquay, Cornwall. He started writing at the age of seven. His Cornish background has been rarely commented on, but he came to learn Cornish as a young man.

His father was a local school master and an intellectual, who had radical convictions in politics and a strong faith in science. The family moved to Marlborough and he attended Marlborough Grammar School. He later went to Oxford University (Brasenose College) in 1930, where he studied natural sciences and English language. His first book, a collection of poems, appeared a year before Golding received his BA.

He married Ann Brookfield, an analytical chemist, in 1939. He became a teacher of English and philosophy at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury.

During World War II he served in the Royal Navy and was involved in the sinking of Germany's mightiest battleship, the Bismarck. He participated in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day and at war's end went back to teaching and writing.

In 1961 his successful books allowed Golding to leave his teaching post and he spent a year as writer-in-residence at Hollins College in Virginia. He then became a full-time writer.

Fiction

Golding's often allegorical fiction makes broad use of allusions to classical literature, mythology, and Christian symbolism. Although no distinct thread unites his novels and his technique varies, Golding deals principally with evil and emerges with what has been characterized as a kind of dark optimism. Golding's first novel, Lord of the Flies (1954; film, 1963), introduced one of the recurrent themes of his fiction—the conflict between humanity's innate barbarism and the civilizing influence of reason. The Inheritors (1955) reaches into prehistory, advancing the thesis that mankind's evolutionary ancestors, "the fire-builders," triumphed over a gentler race as much by violence and deceit as by natural superiority. In Pincher Martin (1956) and Free Fall (1959), Golding explores fundamental problems of existence, such as survival and human freedom, using dreamlike narratives and flashbacks. The Spire (1964) is an allegory concerning the hero's obsessive determination to build a great cathedral spire regardless of the consequences. Golding's later novels have not won the praise his earlier works achieved. They include Darkness Visible (1979) and the historical sea trilogy Rites of Passage (1981), Close Quarters (1987), and Fire Down Below (1989).

Later life

He received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.

William Golding died in his home at Perranarworthal, near Truro, Cornwall on June 19, 1993 and was interred in the churchyard cemetery in Bowerchalke, Wiltshire, England.

Major works

• Poems (1934)
• Lord of the Flies (1954)
• The Inheritors (1955)
• Pincher Martin (1956)
• Free Fall (1959)
• The Spire (1964)
• The Hot Gates (1965)
• The Scorpion God (1971)
• Darkness Visible (1979)
• A Moving Target (1982)
• The Paper Men (1984)
• To The Ends of the Earth trilogy - Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987), and Fire Down Below (1989)

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