Island

Island is a 1962 utopian manifesto and novel by English writer Aldous Huxley, the author's final work before his death in 1963. 

Island is a provocative counterpoint to his worldwide classic Brave New World, in which a flourishing, ideal society located on a remote Pacific island attracts the envy of the outside world.

In the novel, which Huxley considered his most important, he transports us to the remote Pacific island of Pala, where an ideal society has flourished for 120 years. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala. 

Events are set in motion when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and—to his amazement—give him hope.

Although it has a plot, the plot largely serves to further conceptual explorations rather than setting up and resolving conventional narrative tension.

Review

“A mirror for modern man. . . . Should be read and reread.” — Saturday Review

“Island’s warnings about religious fanaticism, the exercise of massive military power, the geopolitical importance of oil and the development of artificial insemination seem extraordinarily prophetic." — The Guardian

“One of the truly great philosophical novels” — The Times (London)

One of the 99 Best Modern Novels — New York Times Book Review