William Golding

Sir William Golding (1911 to 1993) was a British novelist, playwright and poet. He is best known for his first novel, Lord of the Flies, published in 1954, and he went on to publish a dozen more works of fiction in his lifetime. His sea trilogy, To the Ends of the Earth, opens with Rites of Passage, which won the Booker Prize in 1980. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983, was knighted in 1988 and was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Before writing full time he worked as a schoolmaster, taught English, philosophy, Greek and drama at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, and served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. He is buried in the churchyard at Bowerchalke in Wiltshire.