Rites of Passage

William Golding (1911 - 1993) was born in Cornwall and educated in Marlborough and Oxford. Before becoming a writer, he was an actor, lecturer, small-boat sailor, musician and schoolteacher. In 1940 he joined the Royal Navy and took part in the D-Day operation and invasion of Holland. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, was rejected by several publishers but rescued from the 'slush pile' at Faber and published in 1954. It became a modern classic selling millions of copies, translated into 35 languages and made into a film by Peter Brook in 1963. Golding wrote eleven other novels, a play and two essay collections. He won the Booker Prize for Rites of Passage in 1980 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983. He was knighted in 1988 and died in 1993. william-golding. co. uk

Annie Proulx is a celebrated American author and journalist. Her novels includeThe Shipping News, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for Fiction as well as being made into a major film in 2001, as well as Postcards, Accordion Crimes, That Old Ace in the Holeand Barkskins. Her short story 'Brokeback Mountain' was adapted into an award-winning motion picture in 2005. She lives in New Hampshire.