Editing William Golding (section)

==Career==
{{Moresources|section|date=January 2023}}
===Writing success===
[[File:Golding, Lundkvist och Sartre i Leningrad 1963.jpg|thumb|Golding, [[Artur Lundkvist]] and [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] at a writers' congress in [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]], [[USSR]], 1963.]]
In ''William Golding: A Critical Study'' (2008), George states that, “Golding experienced two things that he counts the greatest influences on his writing—first, the war and his service in the navy and second, his learning ancient Greek.”<ref>{{Cite book |last=Usha |first=George |title=William Golding: a critical study |publisher=Atlantic Publishers & Dist. |year=2008 |isbn=978-0571132591}}</ref> While still a teacher at [[Bishop Wordsworth's School]], in 1951 Golding began writing a manuscript of the novel initially titled ''Strangers from Within''.<ref name="Williams">{{cite web | title=New BBC programme sheds light on the story behind the publication of Lord of the Flies | website=Faber & Faber Blog | date=6 June 2019 | url=https://www.faber.co.uk/blog/new-bbc-programme-sheds-light-on-the-story-behind-the-publication-of-lord-of-the-flies/ | access-date=28 August 2021}}</ref> 

In September 1953, after rejections from seven other publishers, Golding sent a manuscript to [[Faber and Faber]] and was initially rejected by their reader, Jan Perkins, who labelled it as "Rubbish & dull. Pointless".<!--<ref name="Sunday Feature BBC R3">Sunday Feature, 18:45 2 June 2019, BBC Radio 3, 45 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/13750939?bcast=129246943 (Accessed 16 April 2020)</ref>--> His book, however, was championed by Charles Monteith, a new editor at the firm. Monteith asked for some changes to the text and the novel was published in September 1954 as ''[[Lord of the Flies]]''.

After moving in 1958 from [[Salisbury]] to nearby [[Bowerchalke]], he met his fellow villager and walking companion [[James Lovelock]]. The two discussed Lovelock's [[Gaia Hypothesis|hypothesis]], that the living matter of the planet Earth functions like a single organism, and Golding suggested naming this hypothesis after [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]], the personification of the Earth in Greek mythology, and mother of the Titans.<ref name="ecolo.org">James Lovelock, 'What is Gaia?', [http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/what_is_Gaia.html accessed 16 May 2013]</ref> His publishing success made it possible for Golding to resign his teaching post at Bishop Wordsworth's School in 1961, and he spent that academic year in the United States as writer-in-residence at [[Hollins University|Hollins College]] (now Hollins University),<ref>{{Cite news |last=Knight |first=Nini |date=September 28, 1961 |title=Golding Glad To Be At Hollins |url=https://digitalcommons.hollins.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1764&context=newspapers |access-date=April 8, 2024 |work=Hollins Columns |page=1 |publication-place=Hollins College, Virginia |volume=XXXIV |issue=2}}</ref> near [[Roanoke, Virginia]].{{cn|date=January 2023}}

Golding won the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] for ''[[Darkness Visible (Golding)|Darkness Visible]]'' in 1979, and the [[Booker Prize]] for ''[[Rites of Passage (novel)|Rites of Passage]]'' in 1980. Having been appointed [[Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] (CBE) in the [[1966 New Year Honours]],<ref>United Kingdom list: {{London Gazette |issue=43854 |date=31 December 1965 |pages=10   |supp=y}}</ref> Golding was appointed a [[Knight Bachelor]] in the [[1988 Birthday Honours]].<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=51558 |date=13 December 1988 |page=13986 }}</ref> In September 1993, only a few months after his unexpected death, the First International William Golding Conference was held in France.<ref>F. Regard (ed.), ''Fingering Netsukes: Selected Papers from the First International William Golding Conference'', Saint-Etienne, PUSE, 1995.</ref>

===Nobel Prize in Literature=== 
{{Main|1983 Nobel Prize in Literature}}
In 1983, Golding was awarded the [[Nobel Prize for Literature]] "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".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1983/summary/ |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1983 |publisher=nobelprize.org }}</ref> It was, according to the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', "an unexpected and even contentious choice".<ref name="ODNB"/>

===Fiction===
His first novel, ''[[Lord of the Flies]]'' (1954; film, 1963 and 1990; play, adapted by [[Nigel Williams (author)|Nigel Williams]], 1995), describes a group of boys stranded on a tropical island descending into a lawless and increasingly wild existence before being rescued.<ref>{{Cite news|date=16 September 2014|title=William Golding Flies classic holds true 60 years on|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-29205286|access-date=22 December 2020}}</ref> ''[[The Inheritors (William Golding)|The Inheritors]]'' (1955) depicts a tribe of gentle Neanderthals encountering modern humans, who by comparison are deceitful and violent. His 1956 novel ''[[Pincher Martin]]'' records the thoughts of a drowning sailor. ''[[Free Fall (Golding novel)|Free Fall]]'' (1959) explores the question of freedom of choice. The novel's narrator, a World War Two soldier in a German POW Camp, endures interrogation and solitary confinement. After these events and while recollecting the experiences, he looks back over the choices he has made, trying to trace precisely where he lost the freedom to make his own decisions. ''[[The Spire]]'' (1964) follows the construction (and near collapse) of an impossibly large spire on the top of a medieval cathedral (generally assumed to be [[Salisbury Cathedral]]).<ref name="MFS 1986 Harold H. Watts">{{cite journal | last=Watts | first=Harold H. | title=A View from the Spire: William Golding's Later Novels (review) | journal=MFS Modern Fiction Studies | volume=32 | issue=2 | date=1986 | issn=1080-658X | doi=10.1353/mfs.0.0492 | pages=321–322}}</ref>  

Golding's 1967 novel, ''[[The Pyramid (Golding)|The Pyramid]]'', consists of three linked stories with a shared setting in a small English town based partly on Marlborough where Golding grew up. ''[[The Scorpion God]]'' (1971) contains three novellas, the first set in an ancient Egyptian court ("The Scorpion God"); the second describing a prehistoric African hunter-gatherer group ("Clonk, Clonk"); and the third in the court of a Roman emperor ("Envoy Extraordinary"). The last of these, originally published in 1956, was reworked by Golding into a play, ''The Brass Butterfly'', in 1958. From 1971 to 1979, Golding published no novels. After this period he published ''[[Darkness Visible (Golding)|Darkness Visible]]'' (1979): a story involving terrorism, paedophilia, and a mysterious figure who survives a fire in [[the Blitz]] and appears to have supernatural powers. In 1980, Golding published ''[[To the Ends of the Earth#Rites of Passage|Rites of Passage]]'', the first of his novels about a voyage to Australia in the early nineteenth century. The novel won the [[Booker Prize]] in 1980 and Golding followed this success with ''[[To the Ends of the Earth#Close Quarters|Close Quarters]]'' (1987) and ''[[To the Ends of the Earth#Fire Down Below|Fire Down Below]]'' (1989) to complete his 'sea trilogy', later published as one volume entitled ''[[To the Ends of the Earth]]''. In 1984, he published ''[[The Paper Men]]'': an account of the struggles between a novelist and his would-be biographer.<ref name="Bufkin 1985 ">{{cite journal | last=Bufkin | first=E. C. | title=The Nobel Prize and the Paper Men: The Fixing of William Golding | journal=The Georgia Review | volume=39 | issue=1 | date=1985 | pages=55–65 }}</ref>