The Inheritors

Hunt, trek, and feast among Neanderthals in this stunning novel by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies, introduced by Ben Okri.

This was a different voice; not the voice of the people. It was the voice of other.

When spring comes, the people leave their winter cave, foraging for honey, grubs, and the hot richness of a deer’s brain. They awaken the fire to heat their naked bodies, lay down their thorn bushes, and share pictures in their minds. But strange things are happening: inexplicable scents and sounds. Imaginable beasts are half-glimpsed in the forest; upright creatures of bone-faces and deerskins. What the people do not know is that their day is already over …

‘Extraordinary … Genius … Remarkable in the literature of the twentieth century.’ Ben Okri

‘A stun gun to read … Truly a masterpiece.’ Monique Roffey

‘An earthquake in the petrified forests of the English novel.’ Arthur Koestler

‘An astonishing, underrated novel.’ Robert MacFarlane

‘Beautiful, powerful … A visionary dream … Shakespearean.’ Ted Hughes

‘A master fabulist, and a brilliantly creative interpreter of remote history … An iconoclast.’ John Fowles

‘A tour de force … Genius.’ Daily Telegraph

‘Alarming, eye-opening, desolating, mind-invading and unique.’ New Statesman