The inheritors
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 1961
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 233
Subjects: Neanderthals; Fiction
Description: "Golding{u2019}s 1955 novel, which he considered his best, tells the story of a small group of Neanderthals meeting Homo sapiens for the first time. It{u2019}s not hard to see why he rated it so highly; it{u2019}s enormously impressive. Imagining a species both like and unlike us from the inside is absurdly difficult and at best risks being done in a technically accomplished but flat {u2018}creative writing exercise{u2019} way, or as something authentic-seeming but impenetrably obscure. Golding{u2019}s creation is loosely informed by science rather than guided by it, much of what he describes is his own invention, but he makes it both plausible and absorbing. The narrative, with a careful balance between being convincingly strange and being readable, still feels original sixty years on. Golding also, and this may be the most impressive thing, makes the Neanderthals individuals." -- From web review.