The Inheritors

Nobel Prize in Literature 1983

English writer William Gerald Golding was born on September 19, 1911, in the small village of St. Columb Minor, Cornwall. The son of a politically minded primary school teacher and a women's rights activist, he began writing early, at just seven years old.
After completing his secondary studies at Marlborough Grammar School, he enrolled at Brasenose College, Oxford University, intending to fulfill his father's wish and study Natural Sciences. However, after two years he found the strength to follow his true calling and transferred to English Literature.
In 1934, while still a student, he published his first book, a compilation of poems entitled PoemsIn 1939 he moved to Salisbury, where he began teaching English at Bishop Wordsworth's School.
As a result of the outbreak of World War II, he enlisted in the Royal Navy, rising shortly afterwards to the rank of commander of a torpedo boat. He witnessed the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck and the Normandy landings.
After the war ended, Golding returned to teaching and his great ambition, writing. In 1954 he published his first novel, Lord of the Flies (Lord of the FliesThe book, which became an immediate international bestseller, recreates events that would occur in the near future and tells the story of a group of children who, after being evacuated from England because of a nuclear war, survive the plane crash that kills all the adults. Arriving on a coral island, they form their own society, which begins as a united and just society, but gradually becomes utter anarchy.
Among other volumes, the following followed: The Inheritors (1955), a work that refers to the destruction of Neanderthals by Cro-Magnons, Free Fall (1959), The Spire (1964), lucid portrait of human monomania, Darkness Visible (1979) and Rites of Passage (1980, Rites of Passage).
Knighted in 1988, William Golding was the winner of numerous awards, including the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983.
She died in Perranarworthal on June 19, 1993.

William Golding. In Infopédia. Porto: Porto Editora, 2003-2011.