Monday, March 9, 2015

Islomania is a strange attraction to islands. As far back as the days of Plato’s Atlantis, islands and island nations have been a source fascination and inspiration. A brief description from a lost seaman’s encounter with another land was enough to drive people into the sea risking everything in search of a new world.

There was a time in human history when innocence prevailed; when anything could be believed by the mere power of storytelling; when every trip and adventure had a mythical feeling. It was the time when everything could be true and out there.

In ancient times, those who could afford it, usually kings, were sending ships to find a fountain of youth; some were melting, distilling and transforming mysterious elements in search of gold, knowledge and a cure for all diseases.

In all these fantasies, islands were the most featured subjects that fascinated the minds. A king would receive news of a fantasy world where the immortal live in a beautiful paradise somewhere in the middle of the sea, and these kings would dispatch search missions into the sea.

While most people attracted to islands were driven by their fantasies of finding better things, others were driven by their need to escape authority. Most people’s idea of an island is a sandy beach that leads to green forests and coconuts trees, but not every island looks like a tropical paradise.

Even today people’s attraction to islands remains. The most visited holiday destinations are islands, and an island is a symbol of freedom, paradise and pleasure. The rich still buy houses on islands, and in some places like Dubai islands are being constructed at sea. Plato’s Atlantis is still the subject of many books, documentaries and movies. And resorts named after the legend include Atlantis Bahamas and a newly constructed Atlantis underwater hotel in Dubai.

If you suffer from islomania, book yourself into VILLA MAMANA on tropical Telekivava'u.

The absurdity of reality is lost on the large land masses, but here on the islands, it is writ large. An island offers a stage: everything that happens on it is practically forced to turn into a story, into a chamber piece in the middle of nowhere, into the stuff of literature. What is unique about these tales is that fact and fiction can no longer be separated: fact is fictionalized and fiction is turned into fact.

So writes Judith Schalansky in the introduction to her book "Atlas of Remote Islands - Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will" which won a prize in Germany as the most beautiful book of the year. It deserves to win several more.

The book does not mention Telekivava'u which ensures that you are the only guest when you book yourself into VILLA MAMANA on tropical Telekivava'u.