Oh what a journey this book took me on!! So powerful. My only issue was thatbit seemed a bit slow at first but once you get into the story it packs a punch.

I wont go into details as i dont like giving spoilers but this book is a must read.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read such a powerful story

All thoughts and opinions are my own and are not influenced by anyone else.

An Island by Karen Jennings is a highly recommended allegorical novel of a light keeper on an isolated island who has a stranger wash ashore.

Samuel has live on a small island as a lighthouse keeper off the coast of an unnamed African country for many years. He tends his garden, builds his wall surrounding it, cares for his chickens and the lighthouse, and buries any bodies that wash ashore. When a stranger washes ashore still alive, Samuel manages to get him up to his home. The stranger seems to be recovering, leaving Samuel uncertain what he should do.

He vividly remembers his former life on the mainland where he was a political prisoner and his country was exploited under colonial rule. After a revolution, his country won independence, but this did not change the suffering of the people. The stranger induces in Samuel pondering and reminiscing about events that have occurred in his past. Samuel knows how fickle people and governments can be, and how only certain lives are actually valued, those who can promote the current regime and their plans.

The narrative follows Samuel recalling his past and trying to live with the stranger. This is really a character study of an old man who has seen enough in the past to doubt what the present has to offer. He is used to being alone and having this stranger living with him on his island is jarring to his sensibilities, but is also causing Samuel to remember events from his past. This juxtaposition of past and present results in mistrust and resentment in Samuel over the stranger which can be akin to the struggles of his unnamed country.

This is a bleak, forlorn novel written in spare prose and meager but essential details. The tension and foreboding runs high, although nothing occurs in the present day to warrant it, Samuel's imagination and reflections on the past are brought to the forefront of the present. 3.5 rounded up

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Hogarth Press via NetGalley.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, Edelweiss, Google Books, and Amazon.

This was longlisted (but not shortlisted) for the Booker Prize in 2021 but is just now coming out in the United States later this month. I had early access from Random House in audio.

Karen Jennings is a white South African writer, and I only say this because the narrative voice is definitely Black. The narrator in the story is African but the country of origin is unnamed. This made me a little squirmy for sure - Africa is a varied and complex place and I don't think it hurts anyone to just go ahead and place the story relating to a specific time and place. Perhaps the author was angling for universal themes.

The story is about Samuel, who has been tending a lighthouse on an island off the coast of "somewhere in Africa" for two decades. He has regular deliveries of supplies but lives mostly on his own. Some kind of conflict has sent the occasional dead body to his shore, and he always buries them. One day, one of the bodies is still alive and it puts his small life and his personal history in a spin.

Samuel is a septuagenarian who has worked alone, as a lighthouse keeper, on an island off the coast of an unnamed African country for twenty-three years. Before that, he had spent twenty-five years in prison, the aftermath of a violent protest to right the wrongs of his country’s past. His present days are filled with mundane tasks, such as tending his vegetable garden, feeding his chickens, and keeping the lighthouse in working order. However, Samuel is about to come face to face with his past failures and shortcomings when a castaway foreigner washes ashore and needs his help.

An Island is a page turner, with easy flowing prose that turns dense towards the second half of the book. Despite its incisive political commentary—social disenchantment has followed a revolution, and the deposition of one corrupt president has given rise to a dictator with a messianic complex— the story is forgettable beyond the page, although it has one redeeming feature: its universal appeal — the year in which the story takes place, the country’s name, and the dictator’s political leanings are deliberately left out of the narrative, but it could easily have occurred in Africa or elsewhere, hence its universality.

Samuel is not a sympathetic character by any means, but one can easily understand how his past circumstances (his forced exile, his social disillusionment, his imprisonment, the endless questioning sessions in jail, his personal losses) would have made him crave loneliness in the present, and consequently, how that loneliness may be affecting his perceptions. He is a curmudgeon for sure, but is he an unreliable observer? That’s the ultimate question propelling this story forward.

In short, page turning yet forgettable, An Island wasn’t a favorite of mine, but I’m glad I read it, nonetheless.

Disclaimer: I received a digital ARC from the publisher, via Netgalley, in exchange for my honest opinion.

Interesting and well written I just personally couldn’t get into the story. Definitely creepy. Just a little slow and unbelievable at some points. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This story is about Samuel, an old man who lives a solitary life as the lighthouse keeper on an island off the African coast. His only human contact is the boat that comes to replenish his supplies. Until a body washes up on shore and he’s not dead.

The novel takes place over the next 4 days as Samuel tries to figure out whether the strange man is a threat to him or not. Neither can understand the other’s language so communication is difficult. But the stranger’s presence unearth’s Samuel’s troubled history with poverty, his involvement in the revolution, the riot that put him in prison, the family that he lost and the reason why he ended up on the island.

This is a short book at only 224 pages but it’s a powerful novel about one man’s life and the choices he made in his younger days which still haunt him today. Through Samuel’s history, we learn about the difficulties of living under a dictator, the challenges of poverty and the desperation that can lead a person to make the choices they do.

I really enjoyed this novel. It started a little slow but it packed a powerful punch as the intensity of the situation on the island was coupled with the flashbacks from Samuel’s past.

This book was long listed for the Booker Prize Award in 2021. Thank you to @netgalley for this advance readers copy in exchange for my honest review

Samuel lives alone on an island off the coast of Africa, charged with maintaining a lighthouse. He is an old man, worn down by the pain dealt by the civilized world. He just wants to be left alone on his land, his island. His function is to oversee the place, keep the lighthouse going, and to bury the dead bodies who wash up on the shore. These are refugees who desperately crammed themselves onto makeshift boats and did not make it. The bodies were no longer of interest to the government and were even ridiculed by the men who drop off the island’s supplies… “There were bodies floating everywhere… those sharks of yours won’t be starving anymore!" and "They deserve it, don’t they?... Anyone stupid enough to pack themselves in a rotting boat like that and try to enter another country illegally is asking to die.”

Samuel’s world is turned upside down when one of the bodies washes up still alive. Samuel’s initial instinct is to help, to be friendly, to do the right thing. This stranger, a much younger and physically imposing man, does not speak Samuel’s language and that adds to an estrangement and lack of understanding between the two. His mere presence threatens Samuel and triggers a series of memories pouring out: all his regrets and hardships, all the mistakes he feels he has made, all the trauma associated with his life outside the island. The sense of joy over some companionship is struggling with a paranoia to protect what is his.

Refugees. There are few social issues which test the conscience like the refugee one. Love thy neighbor– hard to argue with that concept. How does this change when a stranger enters the picture and seems a real threat? Samuel has worked hard, has built his walls to seal his world.

“This land is mine. I am the land.” –Samuel

“An Island” surprised many when it was on the 2021 Booker Prize Longlist. It is a relatively short novel and one that had a hard time getting noticed by publishers in the first place. Karen Jennings has written a beautifully concise and insightful portrait of a man both consumed by and trapped by his island. Thank you to Random House / Hogarth and NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #AnIsland #NetGalley

This started off strong. I was intrigued when the stranger washed ashore, but then the flashbacks began. Whatever the author's commentary was supposed to be, I only grasped it on a superficial level...and not enough to truly appreciate it. The present day portions of the story were great, filled with suspense. I would have loved to have more of that.

This was my first book to read by Karen Jennings but it won't be my last. This story and its characters will stay with you long after you put this book down. Highly recommend this gripping novel!

Isolation and connection are understandably popular themes in recent literature. "An Island" stands out because of its discussion of colonialism, refugees, and the immigrant experience. It's tense and rather bleak but at the same time, beautiful.

An interesting read.Mainly told through the voice and memories of an elderly fragile lighthouse keeper. The setting is an unnamed country in Africa,a journey from colonialism through a revolution to freedom and subsequent dictatorship , which imprisons Samuel( the keeper) and multiple other dissidents.Other themes are addressed obliquely-climate change, racism, and problems stemming from illegal immigration, encapsulated in his “ guest” who survives a shipwreck and with whom he can’t communicate.
It’s a short read, at times I thought difficult to follow, but supplies much to think about.

Samuel is a lighthouse keeper on an island off of the coast of Africa. He enjoys the solitude and taking care of his garden, his chickens, and the lighthouse. One day a refugee washed ashore and Samuel helps him but then feels threatened by his presence on the island. The book flash is back to Samuels earlier days as a prisoner which were violent.

3.5, rounded up.

A fast-paced, well written. and often powerful allegory/fable - but yet the unrelenting bleakness and my inability to really relate to any of the characters kept me at arm's length throughout the story. And while the ending was entirely appropriate, I also found it disturbingly nihilistic.

I'm rather embarrassed to admit that another major problem I had with the book - and this is probably my own naivete/historical ignorance, and hopefully not just inherent white privilege/racism - but I was never QUITE sure of Samuel's racial character (which is never definitively stated, unless I missed it), or of some of the others. Initially, perhaps swayed by the author's own skin color, I assumed Samuel was a white South African. Then, when there was talk of Samuel's stand against colonialism, and his incarceration began to mirror that of Mandela, I said, ok, he's black.

When Lesi, his son, is born, though, it's stated that he comes out 'yellow', so even with his black African name, and his mother's presumed blackness, again I was confused. I guess I came to the conclusion that, yes, Samuel IS black, but that ambivalence/vacillation throughout skewed how I viewed the book, as I couldn't determine exactly what the author was trying to say.

Still, another strong contender in what is shaping up, in my opinion, to be one of the best Booker longlists in years - there have only been two of the 12 I've read so far, that I haven't cared for - and it is indicative of the quality of this year's writing that this is now ranked 8th in my list, even though I could certainly see it making the shortlist and perhaps even winning.
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An aging lighthouse keeper finds bodies that wash onshore all the time. He usually buries them. The latest arrival appears to be breathing, so he leaves him be. When he wakes up, he takes the man back to his cottage to feed him. They don't speak the same language and the arrival of this stranger unearths memories of the lighthouse keeper's troubled past and paranoia. Most likely the stranger is a refugee from a boat but is he a criminal who intends to take over the island? The narrative alternates between the past and the present. This is a short novel and the prose is sparse but gorgeous. It is amazing how much can be expressed to the reader in so few words.

4.5/5 Thank you to Net Galley and the author for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The story covers only four days; yet so much can happen in four days.

This is a very powerful read about a peaceful, solitary-living soul who mans the island lighthouse off of an unnamed African country’s coast. Samuel lives totally alone with his only human contact being the two men on the supply boat that comes every two weeks. He is quite self-sufficient with his garden and his chickens. He occupies his spare time fighting the ubiquitous weeds and by building a stone wall around the island; which hides a number of dead bodies that have washed up on his shores. He learned early on that the government was rarely interested in the people who floated over and he stopped reporting them.

Then one day, he finds a body attached to a large plastic drum on the beach. He has little empathy for who the person may have been and is much more interested in what use he can make of the drum until the man briefly opened his eyes and groaned. Still, Samuel was rather unconcerned for the person, figuring that he would soon succumb to the ravages of his journey to the island.

As Samuel brings the man into his home, he feels strangely threatened. The two do not speak each other’s language and cannot communicate. Samuel’s routines have been disrupted and he is distrustful of this interloper. His isolation has led to a profound paranoia against sharing HIS island. The story weaves between the present and flashbacks into Samuel’s past which show how he has come to where his thoughts are now. His history leads to the crescendo ending on the fourth day.

Quite good. I'll call this a slow burn with a good ending. I'm skeptical of award winning books at times, but enjoyed this one. I think lit fans will like this one.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

This book was a sweeping drama that carried me through the journey with it. I really enjoyed the book and couldn’t put it down. Thank you for the ARC.

On a small unnamed island off the coast of an unnamed African country an old man lives and works at the lighthouse. He’s been on his own for a long time and before that his life has been so turbulent and tragic that being on his own is potentially the best situation for him and yet…it’s lonely.
One day the sea washes up a companion for him, a refugee who doesn’t speak his language. The old man is reluctant to accept this man, reluctant to trust him, but he doesn’t turn him into the authorities either. Instead, he takes care of him, feeds him, gives him shelter.
It would seem like a beginning of a heartwarming story about kindness of strangers, but it isn’t. To the book’s credit, it isn’t. Instead, it’s a story of lingering trauma and the way both cowardliness and violence linger in one’s psyche, eventually becoming interchangeable.
The old man’s story is fairly typical of his continent – his country, once a colony, has won autonomy…and wasted it. Subsequent dictatorships ripped apart the very fabric of society and the old man, once young, got tangentially caught up in the dream of rebellion and paid for it with 23 years of his life. Or in some ways, with his entire life. It’s a tragedy. It’s real in ways that don’t require place names. It’s poignant and has a gut puncher of an ending.
The real star of the show is the writing, though. Strikingly enough, this is a debut. Such terrific writing, so clear, so vivid, so concise, so precise, so engaging…it takes you away. Does that magical thing great books do.
It’s a very short novel, though for me it read longer than the state page count, but for its brevity it’s misses nothing and skimps on nothing. This is an entire story of an entire life. Tragic as it is. This is what dramatic literary work ought to be like. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: May 17, 2022

Longlisted for the Booker Prize, An Island is a short but powerful novel following Samuel, who is the lighthouse keeper and sole I habitant on an island off an unnamed African country. He has been on the island in solitude for 23 years when a shipwrecked refugee washes ashore and disrupts his routine. There is palpable anxiety throughout this novel—from his current life on the island, to the flashbacks to his life as a teen, young man, and prisoner. This novel explores the long lasting impact colonialism’s violence in Africa had on generations of citizens. The ending of this book leaves quite a mark—Samuel inevitably becoming what he never could be before, possibly much to the readers dismay.

Psychologically taut, bleak and disturbing book. About a solitary elderly lighthouse keeper on in island off the coast of an unnamed African country named Samuel and a refugee who washes up on the beach. Before the refugee's arrival, we are exposed to Samuel's meager existence and his day-to-day life: stones he has to break down to repair a crack in the breakwater, his chores of taking care of the chickens and vegetable garden, his aches and pains, the indignity of aging. The supply boat comes once a week but otherwise he has been completely alone for the past twenty plus years he's been on the island.

An Island gives a feeling of claustrophobia as two strangers who do not speak a common language are moored on an island and living in close quarters at the lighthouse keeper's tower. Samuel seethes about another mouth to feed and care for, his solitude broken. He vacillates between gruff kindness, impatience and paranoid aggression. The days they spend together are numbered in chapters -The First Day, The Second Day etc. - ratcheting up the tension slowly but surely.

Samuel's traumatic backstory slowly emerges in flashbacks: <spoiler> the verdant valley he and his family lived in was burnt and destroyed by colonizers, they were evicted and move to a slum in the city, his father was involved in the country's Independence movement and crippled, post-independence conditions did not improve for the common people, the President was killed by the military and a Dictator took his place, young Samuel was involved in the People's Faction resistance movement in opposition to the Dictator, he spent 23 years in prison where he was an informant to avoid torture, upon release his parents and son had passed away, his sister and his niece and nephew begrudged feeding him (see the cycle?) so he took the job of lighthouse keeper. Oh, and his baby mama which is the main reason he joined the resistance movement (to impress her) became a prostitute. </spoiler> At the present time, the supply boat brings fresh news of corruption, fraud, military intervention, the possibility of another revolution or coup on the mainland.

On learning Samuel's story and the unnamed African country's, what struck me is the cyclical nature. Colonization, Independence, President, Dictator. Xenophobia, possessiveness, modernization. The pride that Samuel's father exhibited in having been involved in gaining the country's independence is reflected later in his daughter in law's satisfaction in being part of the resistance, both with nothing to show for it. The refugee family that were Samuel's neighbours having fled their own country post independence civil war, it's like a history carousel, whose turn is it next, round and round.

Violence is what's emphasized, the violence that humans are capable of inflicting on each other. Over territory, resources, wealth, power. This is what is reflected in the microcosm of the interaction between Samuel and the refugee, what makes it uncomfortable to read. <spoiler> Samuel descends into paranoia that the refugee is a murderer and wishes him harm, wishes to seize the island for himself. </spoiler> So much to ponder, even why are Samuel's chickens attacking and bullying the red hen? Are we humans no better than animals, always predisposed to violence? Do we all cling to the idea 'this is mine, mine, not yours' and are willing to kill over it? Perhaps not in times of plenty but under strained circumstances?

I wish I could quote from the book especially those about violence and Samuel's spiraling thoughts about the island belonging to him. However the copy I have of this book is an uncorrected proof and the publisher has instructed that we refrain from quoting. As well, there's been discussion of keeping the African country generalized and unnamed which the author addresses in an interview: "I want to be very clear about this, that I don’t believe in reducing Africa to a single country. But in this case, I wanted to use an allegorical means to examine a very complex issue. To take what has been done to Africa in various forms over the centuries, and examine that in a very simple way with just these two protagonists." The two interviews with the author I found were both illuminating, especially with the issue of appropriation: https://www.textpublishing.com.au/blog/interview-with-karen-jennings and https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/05/ive-been-poor-for-a-long-time-after-many-rejections-karen-jennings-is-up-for-the-booker

Thanks to Hogarth, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. This edition of An Island's publication date is projected to be May 2022.