The Island

Antigone Kefala (1931-2022) was born into a family of musicians in Brăila, Romania, and aspired to be an actor. Following the occupation by the Soviet Union, her family fled Romania, first escaping to Greece and living in refugee camps there. She moved to New Zealand before arriving in Sydney in 1959, where she lived until her death. A poet, novelist, and diarist, she has been described as "one of the most significant of the Australian writers who have come from elsewhere" and a "cultural visionary," mapping the experiences of exile, displacement, and otherness.

Madeleine Watts grew up in Sydney, Australia, and currently lives in New York. She has an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, and her fiction has been published in The White Review and The Lifted Brow. Her novella Afraid of Waking It was awarded the Griffith Review Novella Prize. Her debut novel The Inland Sea was shortlisted for the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing. Her non-fiction has appeared in The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Literary Hub.