The Island
The Island
Antigone Kefala
A dazzling portrait of displacement, of love, and of longing from one of Australia’s most significant and overlooked women writers.
Melina was born abroad and raised on the island. She asks her Aunt Niki about life before. She notices how people look at her, strain to understand her. She is full of longing for unknown things. The island occupies a liminal space between Melina’s present moment and memories of the place her relatives still call home.
Originally published in 1984, The Island is considered an overlooked masterpiece of Australian fiction. In prose charged with feeling and sharp with observation, Kefala captures a portrait of exile and otherness.
Praise for Antigone Kefala:
“In poetry as in prose, Antigone Kefala has made the fragment her form. It’s a form that embodies both salvage and destruction, and it’s wonderfully deployed in Late Journals to snatch moments from time while testifying to discontinuity and loss. I couldn’t stop reading this book. It bears moving witness to a distinctive, cosmopolitan vision and an unwavering faith in the power and integrity of art.”—Michelle de Kretser
“Sydney Journals (2008) and Late Journals (2022) showcase Kefala’s distinctive, cosmopolitan vision. They are, among other things, wonderful Sydney documents, capturing the city’s changing moods and forms through charged, astute, visually rich observation…While the loss of community attendant on migration is felt in Kefala’s Late Journals, this work highlights a different, sustaining kinship: the artists and intellectuals Kefala engages with, their presence and their work serving to enrich her days. There is wonderful generosity in Kefala’s acknowledgment of the creative work that matters to her, and a sense of celebration in her intransigent faith in the value and power of art.”—Judges’ citation, Patrick White Literary Award
"Late Journals . . . affirms Kefala’s role as a poet and intellectual, with images and ideas cascading on each other in poetic abundance.—Mel Dixon
Product Info
Publication Date: June 3, 2025
Fiction
Paperback | 5.25 x 8 | 128 Pages
Rights: NA
979-8-893380-03-3