William Golding

Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding about a group of young boys who are stranded on a desert island and subsequently attempt to govern themselves, a task at which they fail disastrously. Its stances on the already controversial subjects of human nature and individual welfare vs. the common good earned it position 70 on the American Library Association's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990?2000.Published in 1954, Lord of the Flies was Golding's first novel, and although it was not a great success at the time ?selling fewer than 3,000 copies in the United States during 1955 before going out of print ?it soon went on to become a bestseller, and by the early 1960s was required reading in many schools and colleges. It was adapted to film in 1963 by Peter Brook, and again in 1990 by Harry Hook. The title is a reference to the Hebrew name Beelzebub a name sometimes used as a synonym for Satan.