The Inheritors
by William Golding, with a foreword by Ben Okri
Recommendations from our site
“This one is interesting because he is trying to imagine the world of Neanderthals, and specifically, their world as they encounter our world, the world of early Homo sapiens. He also lets himself go beyond the archaeological knowledge of the time: it’s not strictly accurate and he’s not really trying to be, so, in a way, it’s actually a little bit closer to what we might think of as speculative fiction now. It’s not truly a historical book in that sense, or historical imagining. What he tries to do for almost the entirety of the book is to let you see the world through the eyes of a different kind of humanity, essentially, that’s what happens. It’s written from the perspective of one tiny group of Neanderthals and particularly from that of the protagonist, Lok, a young male. He lives in a little family group and they’re doing their own thing, as they always have done: existing out of time, in a sense, although they are aware that there is a history to their own people.” Read more...
“The narrative is a remarkable rendition of the state of mind of the last group of Neanderthals as they try to survive—with all the perils that they usually face, but with an additional threat of the new Homo sapiens people, who are logical and successful and have already developed weapons and other survival strategies. The Neanderthals are mild, gentle people who have trouble with logical thought, communicate by telepathy, and have a mode of thought organised in pictures. The novel tells the story of how the peoples come into contact with one another, and that contact is an astonishing piece of writing.” Read more...
The Best William Golding Books
Judy Golding, Memoirist
