Sara Wheeler

A meditation on exile and the meaning of home

In a study of three 19th-century political exiles banished to remote islands, William Atkins explores ‘the nature of displacement itself’

The 40-year old Louise Michel in the uniform of the Garde Nationale. She and her five cats were met by a vast crowd in Paris on her return from exile in 1880. [Bridgeman Images] 
issue 14 May 2022

  • Exiles: Three Island Journeys

    William Atkins

    Faber, pp. 336, £20

What does home mean? Where your dead are buried, as Zulus believe? Or where you left your heart, as a migrant’s saying goes? In these pages William Atkins melds history, biography and travel into a meditation on exile and the meaning of home. It is a volume for our times, as the author seeks to reveal ‘something about the nature of displacement itself’.

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