Fire Down Below

Introduced by Kate Mosse, lose yourself in an epic naval journey in the final novel in the Booker Prize-winning historical fiction Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies. I think there has been death in my hands. On the last stretch of its epic voyage from England to Australia, a disintegrating warship inches towards land. But there are still trials ahead, as the vessel is smashed against an ice cliff and blasted by a great storm, while the claustrophobic passengers battle erotic desires, masculine rivalry and violent power struggles - all experiencing a sea change in their natures. And when an unseen fire begins to smoulder below decks, the other side of the world has never seemed further away ... 'Fantastic ... Gems tumble off the pages ... A strong sense of drama ... Much of the pleasure of reading his work is his original imagery.' Annie Proulx 'A truly noble achievement'. Patrick O'Brien 'The best novel I've read this year ... The language fizzes and spits.' Daily Telegraph 'Reeks and resounds with authenticity ... The epic imaginative enterprise [is] as formidable a feat as the year-long odyssey it charts.' Sunday Times 'Golding writes the past as present [with] uncanny skill and tremendous intuition.' Ben Okri To The Ends of the Earth: A Sea Trilogy - Book Three

William Golding (1911 - 1993) was born in Cornwall and educated at Marlborough Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford. Before becoming a writer, he was an actor, small-boat sailor, musician and schoolteacher. In 1940 he joined the Royal Navy and took part in the D-Day operation and liberation of Holland. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, was rejected by several publishers but rescued from the 'reject pile' at Faber and published in 1954. It became a modern classic selling millions of copies, translated into 44 languages and made into a film by Peter Brook in 1963. Golding wrote eleven other novels, a play and two essay collections. He won the Booker Prize for Rites of Passage in 1980 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983. He was knighted in 1988 and died in 1993. www.william-golding.co.uk