The Island

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Category: Literature

Published on Wednesday, 04 February 2015 15:25

The historical novel “The Island” was written by the English author Victoria Hislop and was published in 2005. This number one bestseller won several awards, including best Newcomer at the British Book Awards in 2007.

It is telling the story of Alexis who visits Crete, the island where her mother grew up, for the first time to learn more about her family’s past which has always been a secret to her. In the small costal town of Plaka she finds out about Spinalonga Island which has been the country’s leper colony until 1957 and meets Fotini who was her grandmother’s best friend. The elderly woman agrees to tell Alexis the story of her family, beginning with her great-grandmother’s infection with leper and the compulsory exile on Spinalonga. She left two daughters, Maria and Anna, and her husband Georgio behind in Plaka and started her new life in the leper colony. Her last years there were greatly influenced by the threats of the disease but also by raising Dimitris a child that came to Spinalonga with her and trying to retain a life as normal as possible.

Her daughter Anna who is a passionate and wild child dreams of escaping the poor life in her village and is not interested at all in helping her sister Maria with caring about the house and their old father. Eventually, when their mother had already died of leper, Anna marries in a rich family but then starts an affair with her husband’s cousin. Maria wants to become a teacher but sets her own wishes aside and devotes herself completely to the work in the house and to helping her father. One day Maria finds first signs of leper on her body and gets exiled on Spinalonga, just like her mother. There she meets Doctor Kyritsis who is researching for a cure of leprosy on the island and falls in love with Maria.

But I don’t want to spoil the whole book for you! It is a really good and interesting read, maybe you want to give it a shot yourself!