
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 20, 1993                   TAG: 9306200086
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Short

NOVELIST WILLIAM GOLDING DIES

Nobel Prize-winning author Sir William Golding, whose classic novel "Lord of the Flies" won acclaim for its chilling story of the descent of marooned schoolboys into barbarism, died Saturday. He was 81.

Matthew Evans, chairman of Golding Golding's publisher, Faber and Faber, said the likely cause of death was a heart attack.

Golding won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1983 and was knighted five years ago.

For a man who once said his biggest affliction was "the inability to write poetry," Golding made a major contribution to English literature. His novels have been reprinted many times and are required reading at many colleges and schools.

Golding suffered a string of rejections before "Lord of the Flies," his first work, was published in 1954. It is about a group of boys who survive an airplane crash-landing an uninhabited island, where they split into tribes and begin fighting one another. The book was made into at least two movies.

"Lord of the Flies" was followed by 11 other novels. "Rights of Passage," published in 1980, won the Booker Prize, one of Britain's most prestigious literary prizes.

by CNB