📜 Literature in the UK
The UK has a rich literary heritage, with notable figures such as novelist Sir William Golding, poet Seamus Heaney, and playwright Harold Pinter, all Nobel Prize winners. Authors like Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming are celebrated for their popular fiction, with Christie's detective stories and Fleming's James Bond series achieving worldwide acclaim. JRR Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" was voted the nation's favorite novel in 2003.
Since 1968, the Booker Prize has recognized the best English-language novel published in the UK and Ireland. Past winners include Ian McEwan, Hilary Mantel, and Julian Barnes.
Fun fact: Agatha Christie holds the Guinness World Record for the best-selling fiction author of all time, with over two billion copies of her novels sold worldwide.