William Golding was born in 1911 & educated at his local grammar school & Brasenose College, Oxford. He published a volume of poems in 1934 & during the war served in the Royal Navy. Afterwards he returned to being a schoolmaster in Salisbury. " Lord of the Flies", his first novel, was an immediate success, & was followed by a series of remarkable novels, including " The Inheritors", Pincher Martin & " The Spire". He won the Booker Prize for " Rites of Passage" in 1980, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983, & was knighted in 1988. He died in 1993.