Monday 19 September 2011

William Golding Centenary Round-Up

On this day 100 years ago, William Golding was born in Newquay, Cornwall. To celebrate his life and work, the Cornwall Campus at the University of Exeter hosted a three-day conference, which culminated in a visit to Golding's home at Perranarworthal.

There have been various publications to mark the centenary. Faber has reissued the novels with introductions (Stephen King on Lord of the Flies, John Carey on The Inheritors, etc.). This weekend, two of my old tutors, Craig Raine and Peter Conrad, have published essays on The Spire and Lord of the Flies respectively. And The Guardian is now running a competition to design a new cover for Flies. Starting tonight, and for the rest of the week, Radio 3 will be broadcasting essays on Golding's novels.

1 comment:

  1. The Lord of the Flies is a great book. It reflects the problem of our society by having bunch of kids trying to survive in the island by creating a small society with rules to be together. However, this ends up with savages and chaos with kids trying to kill each other. In the book it says that the imaginary monster lives in this island and this was the start of the chaotic scene. Perhaps the monster is actually inside the children and they were just viewing themselves. And maybe the monster is inside us, too.

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