He handed the easel to the boatman, reaching down the pier wall towards the sea.
Mr Lloyd has decided to travel to the island by boat without engine - the authentic experience. Unbeknownst to him, Mr Masson will also soon be arriving for the summer. Both will strive to encapsulate the truth of this place - one in his paintings, the other with his faithful rendition of its speech, the language he hopes to preserve.
But the people who live here on this rock - three miles wide and half-a-mile long - have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken and what is given in return. Over the summer each of the women and men in the household this French and Englishman join is forced to question what they value and what they desire. At the end of the summer, as the visitors head home, there will be a reckoning.
About the Author
Audrey Magee was born in Ireland and lives in Wicklow. Her first novel, The Undertaking, was short-listed for the Women's Prize for Fiction, for France's Festival du Premier Roman and for the Irish Book Awards. It was also nominated for the Dublin Literary Award and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The Undertaking has been translated into ten languages and is being adapted for film.
Industry Reviews
'I've always believed that good fiction can go to the beating heart of human reality in ways more likely to resonate with a reader than any textbook. A good novel strengthens empathy as well as the imagination and encourages us to see another world from a perspective that travels beyond our own interests. And this novel is better than good. Its beautifully realised lament for lost language and cultural sustainability has universal relevance.' - Canberra Times
'Intelligent and provocative . . . What a relief it is to find a novel that treats the reader as a grown-up, that is fresh without chasing literary fashion, provocative but not shouty, and idiosyncratic but fully satisfying from the strange comedy of its opening pages to its decisive conclusion . . . The Colony contains multitudes - on families, on men and women, on rural communities - with much of it just visible on the surface, like the flicker of a smile or a shark in the water.' - The Times
'Austere and stark . . . a story about language and identity, about art, oppression, freedom and colonialism. The Colony is a novel about big, important things.' - Financial Times
'A vivid and memorable book about art, land and language, love and sex, youth and age. Big ideas tread lightly through Audrey Magee's strong prose.' - SARAH MOSS
'The Colony: so brilliant in its quiet tragedy, so revealing in its precision. It haunts me.' - TSITSI DANGAREMBGA
'A careful interrogation, The Colony expertly explores the mutability of language and art, the triumphs and failures inherent to the process of creation and preservation.' - RAVEN LEILANI
'The Colony is brimming with ideas about identity and soul; a canny, challenging, and never less than engrossing read.' - LISA MCINERNEY
'The Colony is a brilliant and thoughtfully calibrated commentary about the nature and balance of power. There is violence here, but, most impressively, Audrey Magee captures that more insidious cruelty-the kind masked as protection, as manners.' - MARY BETH KEANE
'Audrey Magee has written a lyrical, rich, and emotionally powerful novel. The Colony comes alive like a brooding and beautiful canvas painted off the Irish coast.' - DOMINIC SMITH
