The Island (2005 novel)

Infobox Book |
name = The Island


image_caption = Bookjacket for "The Island"
author = Victoria Hislop
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Headline Review
pub_date = 6 June 2005 (1st edition)
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 320 pp (first edition, hardback)
isbn = ISBN 978-0755309504 (first edition, hardback)

"The Island" is a historical fiction novel written by Victoria Hislop. It is the winner of several awards including that of Newcomer of the Year at the 2007 British Book Awards. [ cite web|url=http://www.britishbookawards.com/bba/pnbb_winners2007.asp? |title=British Book Awards 2007 |accessdate=2008-03-07 |publisher=Publishing News ] The book was also nominated for the Book of the Year award at the same event. [cite news | first=Paul | last=Kelbie | coauthors= | title=Kay and Gervais in running for book award | date=8 March 2007 | publisher= | url =http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/kay-and-gervais-in-running-for-book-award-439255.html | work =The Independent | pages = | accessdate = 2008-03-07 | language = ]

Set on the island of Spinalonga, off the coast of Crete, "The Island" tells the story of Alexis Fielding, a woman on the cusp of a life-changing decision. Alexis knows little or nothing about her family's past and has always resented her mother for refusing to discuss it. She knows only that her mother, Sofia grew up in Plaka, a small Cretan village, before moving to London. Making her first visit to Crete to see the village where her mother was born, Alexis discovers that the village of Plaka faces the small, deserted island of Spinalonga, which, she is shocked and surprised to learn was Greece's leper colony for much of the 20th century. It is here that Alexis meets Fotini an old friend of her mother, someone who is prepared to tell her for the first time the whole tragic story of her family. What Fotini tells her is shocking and tragic, it is the story which Sofia has spent her life concealing: the story of Eleni, her great-grandmother, and of a family torn apart by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island and with the horror and pity of the leper colony which was once there, and learns too that the secrets of the past have the power to change the future.

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