'There aren't any grown-ups anywhere.' A plane crashes on a desert island. The only survivors are a group of schoolboys. By day, they explore the dazzling beaches, gorging fruit, seeking shelter, and ripping off their uniforms to swim in the lagoon.

At night, in the darkness of the jungle, they are haunted by nightmares of a primitive beast. 

'The first book with hands - strong ones that reached out of the pages and seized me by the throat. It said to me, 'This is not just entertainment; it's life or death.' I've been thinking about it ever since, for fifty years and more.' Stephen King

'Thrills me with all the power a fiction can have ... Exemplary.' Ian McEwan

'An existential fable backlit with death's incandescent glare.' Ben Okri

'Violently real ...An apocalyptic novelist who writes with humanist rage and defiance.' Marlon James

'Beautifully written, tragic and provocative.' E. M. Forster