David Gelber
Island Getaway
The Other Exile: The Remarkable Story of Fernão Lopes, the Island of Saint Helena, and a Paradise Lost
By A R Azzam
Icon Books 339pp £14.99
Some 1,200 miles off the coast of Angola and 1,800 miles off the coast of Brazil lies the island of Saint Helena, an accretion of volcanic basalt protruding from the South Atlantic. It was to this ‘cursed rock’ that the British dispatched Napoleon in 1815 following his defeat at Waterloo, confident that, immured by the ocean swell, he would never again disturb the ‘repose of Europe’.
Napoleon was not the first European pariah to make Saint Helena his home. Three centuries before his arrival there, the island played host to another outcast, Fernão Lopes, the subject of A R Azzam’s new book. Whereas the deposed emperor survived a mere six years on his prison island, Lopes clocked up some three decades there, at a time when it had no permanent inhabitants and was little more than a watering stop for Portuguese ships performing the India run.
Lopes was born in the 1480s into the lower ranks of the Portuguese nobility and brought up at court. Portugal at the time was poor and backward. In this half-barren, sparsely populated land, there were few great estates. Most of those born into the higher tiers of society inherited a
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Are iPhones ruining children's lives? A prominent American psychologist thinks so.
@tiffanyjenkins is not so sure:
Tiffany Jenkins - The Smartphone Pandemic
Tiffany Jenkins: The Smartphone Pandemic - The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an...
literaryreview.co.uk
India's 'festival of democracy', or general election, begins next month. Like every good festival, it looks likely to have its fair share of murders and arrests.
@OwenBennettJon probes the state of democracy in India:
Owen Bennett-Jones - New Delhi Confidential
Owen Bennett-Jones: New Delhi Confidential - The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India by Alpa Shah
literaryreview.co.uk
Where is the world's newest narcostate and why is it thriving?
@AdamBrookesWord investigates Asia's meth mecca.
Adam Brookes - Meth Comes to Myanmar
Adam Brookes: Meth Comes to Myanmar - Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Outwitted the CIA by Patrick Winn
literaryreview.co.uk