Islands of Good and Evil — A Journey of Discovery
Islands hold up a mirror to humankind and society in this thrilling exploration
The Scottish define an island as a piece of rock with a year’s grazing for a sheep, but however you define it, an island is the world in miniature. It is the ideal place to start a utopian society, a conduit to dreams of perfection, a clearly-defined space, and the prospect of an undisturbed life, away from the flock.
Non-FictionPrint
Original title
De eilanden van goed en kwaad: een ontdekkingsreis
Author
Adwin de Kluyver
Year of publication
2024
Publisher
Spectrum
Page count
368
[object Object]
Everything in the book is fascinating: the explorers, the idealists dreaming of a new society, the millionaires who want their own little world, convicts, scholars who want to experiment undisturbed, and of course the original inhabitants: everyone is given a place, a voice and a meaning. Everything is wondrous, everything is exciting.
Het Parool
Adwin de Kluyver
Adwin de Kluyver (b. 1968) is a writer, historian and part-time islander who lives and works on Vlieland, Terschelling and the mainland. In 2016, he earned his PhD with a cultural history of polar travel. The diptych 'The Dreamed North' (2019)
and 'No Man’s Land' (2021) received rave reviews and the latter was nominated
for the Jan Wolkers Prize, the award for the best Dutch nature book. The translation rights of these last two books have been sold to Germany.