William Golding: Quick Facts

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Sep. 15, 2026

Facts

Also Known As	Sir William Gerald Golding
Born	September 19, 1911 • Newquay • England
Died	June 19, 1993 (aged 81) • England
Awards And Honors	Nobel Prize (1983) • Booker Prize (1980)
Notable Works	“Darkness Visible” • “Free Fall” • “Lord of the Flies” • “Pincher Martin” • “Rites of Passage” • “The Inheritors” • “The Pyramid” • “The Spire”

Photos

Sir William Golding

Gothic-style Salisbury Cathedral in Salisbury, England, with a tall central spire, pointed arches, and detailed stonework, viewed from a grassy lawn with trees in front.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

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V.S. Naipaul

V.S. Naipaul

Trinidadian-British writer

Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro

Japanese-British author

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

British writer

Galsworthy, oil painting by Rudolf Sauter, 1923; in the University of Birmingham Library, England

John Galsworthy

British writer

J.M. Coetzee

J.M. Coetzee

South African author

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Nadine Gordimer

South African author

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Doris Lessing

British writer

British prime minister Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

prime minister of United Kingdom

T.S. Eliot stands at a chalkboard, writing a diagram with letters and Greek symbols representing characters for a play, in his office at the Institute for Advanced Study.

T.S. Eliot

American-English poet, playwright, and literary critic

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Harold Pinter

British dramatist

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

Irish dramatist and critic

Samuel Beckett, 1965

Samuel Beckett

Irish author

Wole Soyinka, 2015

Wole Soyinka

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Alice Munro

Alice Munro

Canadian author

Abdulrazak Gurnah in 2016, wearing a light shirt and gray jacket, standing outdoors with a blurred modern building in the background.

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Tanzanian-born British author

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

British writer

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Penelope Fitzgerald

British author

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J.G. Farrell

British writer

A.S. Byatt

A.S. Byatt

British scholar, literary critic, and novelist

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Graham Swift

British author

Three stacked volumes of collected works by William Shakespeare. Shakespearean tragedies, Shakespearean comedies, books.

Literary Classics Quiz

Summer red bird, Tanager from The Birds of America by John James Audubon, 4 vol. (435 hand-coloured plates, 1827-38), pl. 44, London. Engraver Robert Havell. Engraving, hand-colored.

Authors of Classic Literature

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. The author of Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy), the great Italian epic poem which tells the story of Dante's journey through hell, purgatory and heaven, the three realms of the dead.

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