Choices - Fiction
Hislop - The Island
 | The Island by Victoria Hislop An island story with a difference. Alexis feels compelled to discover more about her Cretan mother's past, a past she is mysteriously unwilling to discuss. The search takes her to Spinalonga, once a leper colony off Crete. Alexis discovers that leprosy, one of the world's oldest known diseases, is also one of its most misunderstood. The revelation is that, in Hislop's imagination, Spinalonga is more civilised than many aspects of the mainland. There are deaths, but there are marriages, too. These are people imprisoned behind fortressed walls but they have rights and freedoms. This is a beach book, packed with family sagas, doomed love affairs, devastating secrets. However, the author also forces us to reflect on illness, the nasty, narrow-mindedness of the healthy and the spirit of survival in the so-called 'unclean'. Her message seems as relevant today as it would have been a century ago. |
