'The 2022 recipient of the Patrick White Literary Award, the late Antigone Kefala was one of the first writers to open Australian fiction to a diversity of voices. She is known for her nuanced and evocative prose style, which portrays the full gamut of the immigrant experience, the fleeing from war, the resettlement in foreign countries, the difficult negotiation of personal relationships, the hauntings of memory and dream. This collection brings together Kefala’s three early novellas The First Journey, The Boarding House and The Island, which have long been out of print, and her three later novellas, published together as Summer Visit by Giramondo in 2022. It also includes her childhood fable Alexia: A Tale of Two Cultures and ten short stories, previously only published in literary magazines, dating back to the beginnings of her career at the end of the 1950s.' (Publication summary)
The novel follows Melina Pappas as she pursues her studies at university. Melina was born abroad and raised on the island - described vaguely, but with a resemblance to New Zealand - and thus occupies an in-between space in society which affects how she is perceived. As Catalina Rebus Segura describes, "She is passionate and shows it in her mannerisms and speech. However, islanders are defined as cold and indifferent as their body language is subdued to their detached speech."
"In The Island, Kefala focuses on perceptions and the consequences of interaction as well as on verbal and non-verbal communication."
Source: "Language and Bilingualism in Antigone Kefala’s Alexia (1995) and The Island (2002)" by Catalina Rebus Segura.
