William Golding

Whether about boys marooned on a desert island (Lord of the Flies), the birth of prehistoric man (The Inheritors), or the building of Salisbury cathedral's spire (The Spire),

Golding's novels combine gripping story-telling with a profound examination of the nature of man and the mysterious forces that work upon him. The Nobel Prize-winning author gave this rare television interview in 1989, four years before his death at the age of eighty-one. He focuses on the trilogy of novels spawned by his Booker Prize-winning Rites of Passage, and extensive dramatised extracts from the final part, Fire Down Below, are included.