William Gerald Golding was born in Cornwall in 1911. His family was progressive and it was the first source of influence for Golding's talent. He studied physics and English literature at Marlboro and Oxford University of England. From the first years of his life, he faced the atrocities of war. He also took part in the Second World War by joining the British Navy at 1940.
The war, as a physical result, changed a lot W.Golding's view of life. W.Golding couldn't believe in man's innocence any longer. He found that even the children are not innocent. No one is innocent until the society and the way of his life make him to pretend that he's innocent. But sometimes, when a man is facing a difficult situation (as an example, a surviving need) then he will propably show his other nature, the dark and guilty nature.
After the war (1945-1962), he worked as a teacher in Salisbury. These years he started to act as a writer. He published the books "Lord of the Flies" (1954), "The Inheritors" (1955), "Pincher Martin" (1956) and "Free Fall" (1959).
The ideas of W.Golding's view of human nature can be found in almost any of Golding's books. Particularly, in his first and most famous book, "Lord of the flies". This book finally published in 1954 and it didn't become a success at once. Today, it's considered one of the best books of English literature. It also became a film with great success.
William Golding was awarded with the BOOKER Mc CONNEL Prize, the greatest British Literature Prize. Finally in 1983, he was awarded with the NOBEL Prize for his whole offer to Worldwide Literature.
William Golding has also teached in Greece (in 60's). He always loved Greek literature, and many of his books show clearly his Greek influence. His last book, "The double tongue" (1993), was a novel about Ancient Greece and most specific about Pythia's life. Pythia was the name which used to be given to the Greek Priestess of Delphi oracle. W.Golding tried to describe a woman's life (he tried this before, when he was writing his novel "Darkness Visible" (1979) who lived in the years of Roman Empire and she happened to be priestess in the last years of the oracle decay. Unfortunately, this book never been finished. William Golding, died in Wiltshire, England in 1993. W.Golding's last book, finally published in 1995, but even it's just a rough draft, it affords to be a great novel.