The Essay: Open Endings

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Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Open Endings: Ian Rankin on Lord of the Flies

Ian Rankin on The Lord of the Flies

Ian Rankin on Lord of the Flies

Open Endings

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Ian Rankin chooses William Golding's Lord of the Flies.

Ian Rankin first read William Golding's novel at school. Scenes from it have stayed with him ever since. Now he imagines what might happen to Ralph and Jack after the novel's end.

Five leading writers pick a novel they love and then write an original piece of fiction imagining what happened to the characters after the story ends.

In the first essay of the series, the crime writer Ian Rankin picks William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Like many students, Ian first encountered the novel at school but certain scenes and moments have stayed with him for the past 40 years. In this essay, Ian explores his relationship with the work as a teenager of the 1970s and imagines what might have happened to two of the shipwrecked boys, Ralph and Jack, once they reach adulthood.

Producer: Camellia Sinclair

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Writers take their favourite fictional stories and imagine what happened next.

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