Portrait of William Golding

Birthday profile

William Golding

William Golding, British novelist, playwright, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1993)

Born
September 19, 1911
Died
June 19, 1993
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1911

About William Golding

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". The journal was initially used by Golding to record his dreams, but over time it began to function as a record of his life.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

William Golding timeline

  1. Best known for his debut novel Lord of the Flies (1954), Golding published another 12 volumes of fiction in his lifetime.
  2. 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.
  3. Golding was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The world when William Golding was born

William Golding was born in 1911. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1911

  • Best-selling book"The Broad Highway" – Jeffery Farnol

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Indianapolis 500 race
  • Top headlineTriangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 workers
  • Technology milestoneFirst transcontinental airplane flight (49 days)
  • World population~1.71B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWilliam Howard Taft
  • U.S. population93.4M

1911 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in William Golding's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19112026
Population93.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.