The son of poor Jewish parents who had emigrated to Britain from Russia, Golding attended Manchester Grammar School and Queen's College, Oxford. He began to write while at the university, publishing his first novel, Forward from Babylon, in 1920. In World War I he fought in the Salonika campaign and after leaving Oxford traveled widely in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Golding produced at least a book a year. The best known was Magnolia Street (1932), a story of working-class life among Jews and Gentiles in a Manchester back street. In 1934 it was produced as a play. His book The Jewish Problem (1938) was a study of anti-Semitism. A broadcaster and lecturer, he also wrote film scripts, verse, short stories, and books on boxing.