The Quixote Reading Club analyses the novel La colonia by Audrey Magee

• Addressed to AlumniUV Premium 
• Would you like to join the Quixote Club?, https://go.uv.es/ayq7CT0

In the summer of 1979, an English painter lands on a small rocky island off the west coast of Ireland, with barely a hundred inhabitants. Mr. Lloyd arrives determined to live the island experience in its truest form, to soak up the light and stillness of the place and thus paint the great work that will relaunch his career. Soon, however, another foreign visitor appears on the scene, Jean-Pierre Masson, a French linguist determined to keep the Irish language alive, for which he considers it essential that the island and its local population preserve their isolation.

The inevitable clash between the two visitors takes place under the watchful eye - between irritation and irony - of the locals, who begin to question the way these outsiders relate to the island and to themselves: how much they bring, how much they take and what they should offer in return. A tension that is, however, barely a faint rumble compared to the news from Northern Ireland, where the armed struggle between the IRA and forces loyal to the UK is beginning to reach unimaginable heights of violence.

In La colonia, Irish author Audrey Magee tells an unforgettable story and creates an entire universe in miniature: that of an island that becomes a mirror of the outside world, with its hopes and its disappointments, its affections and its quarrels, its small and great villainies. Written with a real talent for character depiction, in a subtle balance between realism, gentle satire and moral fable, this superb novel is an intelligent reflection on colonialism and the effect it has on the souls of those on either side of the border that separates them.