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WINNER OF THE WINGATE PRIZE

‘Vivid and moving’ Max Hastings, Sunday Times

‘Excellent . . . a powerful tribute’ Guardian

In the summer of 1940, faced with national paranoia, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the internment of all German, Austrian and Italian citizens living in Britain. Most were refugees who had fled Nazi oppression. They now faced imprisonment by the country in which they had staked their trust.

Among the inmates of Hutchinson Internment Camp, on the Isle of Man, were world-renowned artists, musicians and intellectuals: despite their unjust captivity, they remained resilient, transforming their prison into an artistic and academic community.

Meticulously researched and grippingly recounted, The Island of Extraordinary Captives tells the story of history’s most remarkable group of prisoners – and how they found hope even in the most challenging of circumstances.

‘Riveting . . . an account of cinematic vividness’ New York Times Book Review

‘Eye-opening, insightful and brilliantly written’ Daily Mirror

Publisher Review

Extraordinary yet previously untold true story...meticulously researched...it's also taut, compelling, and impossible to put down * Daily Express * By shining a light upon the government's decision to intern the innocent, Simon Parkin's eye-opening, insightful and brilliantly written book serves as a timely reminder of the dangers of populism * Daily Mirror * Compelling . . . In this "university of captives", Parkin has unearthed a small and riveting chunk of wartime history, easily overlooked -- Anne de Courcy * The Telegraph * Vivid and moving...Spotlights a sorry aspect of Britain's war which deserves to be better known -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times * The wealth of primary sources through which Parkin has trawled fill its pages with life; his enthusiasm for his subject fills it with affection. The reader is left with a powerful sense of Weissenborn's verdict on Hutchinson: to turn a prison camp into a university "was a miracle of the human will to live and to work". * The Times * Meticulously researched * Literary Review * Parkin [has an] inimitable capacity to find the human pulse in the underbelly of Britain's war...The Island of Extraordinary Captives is multi-layered...definitely worth the deep dive into Britain's inglorious war, when desperate men and women were disregarded, abused and left to fester in a humiliating no man's land. It's a reminder that conflict has always been a convenient mask behind which thuggery and xenophobia thrive. Yet, despite the stark injustice it describes, it is a curiously exhilarating read: an example of how individuals can find joy and meaning in the absurd and mundane. * The Spectator * A brisk, vivid narrative...Parkin's success in bringing this shabby corner of Britain's wartime history to life is of more than historical interest. * Times Literary Supplement * Parkin's account, with its well-chosen central figures and attention to the trauma that some of the imprisoned carried for decades, is testimony to human fortitude despite callous, hypocritical injustice -- Best Books of 2022 * New Yorker * Riveting . . . a truly shocking story of what officials are wont to term 'national misjudgment' is electrifyingly told by the journalist and historian Simon Parkin, whose breadth and depth of original research has produced an account of cinematic vividness -- Juliet Nicolson * New York Times Book Review * Parkin's rich and vivid account makes clear just how much the displaced artists did suffer, and the remarkable resilience and creativity with which they responded -- Matthew Reisz * Observer * Excellent . . . Parkin has told his story with energy and flair . . . A powerful tribute to the wartime internees, and a timely reminder of how much Britain gained from their presence -- Charlie English * Guardian *