Islands of banishment approached through three lives: New Caledonia in the South Pacific, where Louise Michel, grandmother of French anarchy and a leader in theParis Commune, was sent for seven years; St Helena, which became home to Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, an enemy of British colonialism in Zululand; and Sakhalin Island off the Siberian coast, the place of exile of Lev Shternberg, a campaigner against Russian tsarism.
