Garland Alex. The Beach

The Beach (1996) is a novel by Alex Garland about backpackers in Thailand. Influenced by such literary works as Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies, it describes the adventures of a young Englishman in search of and on a legendary, idyllic beach untouched by tourism.A furiously intelligent first novel … a book that moves with the kind of speed and grace many older writers can only day-dream about – Washington PostThe Beach was made into a film in 2000, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Robert Carlyle, Virginie Ledoyen and Guillaume Canet.