The Inheritors

Set in prehistoric times, this short novel follows a small group of Neanderthal people as they move to their summer grounds. They are gentle, close-knit and understand the world through images and feeling rather than argument. Their lives are disturbed by the arrival of strange newcomers, a different kind of people, whom they struggle to understand. Told largely from the Neanderthal point of view, the book invites readers to see human beings from the outside. Golding considered it among his favourite works, and it challenges comfortable ideas about progress and innocence.