TODAY IN LITERARY HISTORY: September 16
“AREN’T THERE ANY GROWN-UPS AT ALL!”
His ‘you-must-have-read-this’ classic, Lord of the Flies, follows a group of British schoolboys stranded on an uninhabited island whose attempt to govern themselves descends into fear, violence, and chaos.
DID YOU KNOW? Before becoming a full-time writer, Golding was a schoolteacher and served in the Royal Navy during World War II. His wartime experience profoundly affected his view of human nature and helped shape the darker vision behind Lord of the Flies.
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983, the Booker Prize in 1980, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1979, Golding became one of the major British novelists of the twentieth century. His work has reached readers around the world and has been translated into more than 35 languages.
In addition to his 12 novels, Golding wrote plays, essays and reviews, short stories, poetry, and a travel book about Egypt. The remarkable range of his fiction took him from prehistoric humanity and medieval England to the sea, modern society, and questions of civilization, morality, and our capacity for violence.
Perhaps Golding’s greatest achievement was confronting the terrible and inhumane events of his century without offering easy answers. He left behind a body of work that explores both the darkness of human behavior and our continuing struggle to understand it.
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