1959: William Golding on how he writes a novel
70 years ago, the novel Lord of the Flies was first published. The debut novel, by William Golding, became a modern classic.
He is interviewed in 1959, shortly after the publication of his fourth novel, 'Free Fall', and while still working as a teacher at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury. Golding talks candidly about the process of writing a novel and the painstaking craftsmanship that he brings to his work.
Golding was to leave teaching in 1961, when his success as a writer enabled him to embark on a glittering career that would see him showered with literary honours. This culminated in him being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983. He was knighted in 1988 and died in 1993, aged 81, at his home in Cornwall.
Originally broadcast