Sir William Gerald Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was a British novelist, playwright, and poet. Best known for his debut novel Lord of the Flies (1954), Golding published another 12 volumes of fiction in his lifetime. In 1980, Golding was awarded the Booker Prize for Rites of Passage, the first novel in what became his sea trilogy, To the Ends of the Earth. Golding was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature.
As a result of his contributions to literature, Golding was knighted in 1988. He was also a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2008, The Times ranked Golding third on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".