‘The far southern extremities of our planet produce remarkable, distilled, and ravaged tales. An Island has to be counted as among the most remarkable of these. Karen Jennings offers a chilling, immersive portrait of Samuel, a lighthouse keeper on a remote island off the African continent. He is a man at the edge of history, until the arrival of a refugee stranger returns him to everything he most needs to forget. A gripping, terrifying and unforgettable story.’

‘An Island concerns itself with lives lived on the margins, through the story of a man who has exiled himself from the known world… a moving, transfixing novel of loss, political upheaval, history, identity, all rendered in majestic and extraordinary prose.’

‘Thoroughly absorbing… a small but powerful book, with the reach of a more capacious work, compounding merciless political critique and allegory rendered in tender prose.’

‘A disturbing masterpiece.’

‘A disturbing masterpiece exposing xenophobia and the plight of modern refugees. Through Samuel’s story [Jennings] exposes human frailties and what drives the need to defend oneself, land and possessions.’