The Old Men at the Zoo

The Old Men at the Zoo is a novel written by Angus Wilson, first published in 1961 by Secker and Warburg and by Penguin books in 1964. It was adapted, with many changes—nuclear bombing of London, not present in the novel, is added—into a 1983 BBC Television serial by the scriptwriter Troy Kennedy Martin. The book deals with events before a nuclear attack on London during a (presumably) limited nuclear war, which results in the imposition of a later post-apocalyptic pan-European dystopian dictatorship, until rescue arrives for the prisoners at the zoo, transformed into a concentration camp.