Island Journeys

Islands occupy a special place in the modern psyche. To a large extent, the French have helped to create that fascination through exploration, colonization, missionary work, and war. Powerful personalities shaped by France have often become associated with islands. In this way, exotic islands have become a part of French culture.
Among the first to write a travel narrative, or récit de voyage, of island life was Father Jean-Baptiste Labat (1663-1738) whose Journey in the Islands of America fascinated the French. Louis Antoine de Bougainville circumnavigated the globe in 1768 and the book he wrote about his adventure, Voyage Autour du Monde, captured the popular imagination with images of a paradise called Tahiti. As the eighteenth century progressed, some islands became contested territories or cruel colonies that produced astonishing wealth. Haiti was the wealthiest French colony of all and Europeans born there were frequent guests at the French Court.
To some, islands feel open and exposed; to others, they are safe havens. For Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Ile St. Pierre in Switzerland's Lake Biel became a symbol of refuge after a mere seven weeks there in 1765. For painter Paul Gauguin, islands were synonymous with exile. Napoleon--whose birth, marriage, and death are associated with islands--recognized the strategic importance of islands early on. On Québec's Grosse Ile, the island becomes a cross-cultural checkpoint and gateway to a better life, a place to pause on a much longer journey.
Islands are self-contained worlds, but sometimes they encompass larger worlds. The Ile de la Cité floats in the center of Paris and yet it is part of the consciousness of metropolitan Paris and all of France. Lambaréné in Gabon, West Africa, as well, is an island whose identity has spilled beyond the riverbanks ever since a young doctor named Albert Schweitzer arrived there in 1913 with the intention of building a hospital.
The islands explored in these essays have accumulated culture and history like a sunken ship accumulates barnacles. They are far more than geography, having achieved the status of place. Each one calls out to the world with intriguing lessons in human experience and echoes of collective memory. After exploring a few islands, it becomes harder to think of islands as small and uncomplicated or, worse, as mere tourist destinations. This is not to say that islands do not offer a kind of escape from the pressures of modern life. As Rousseau discovered, the experience of knowing an island well allows us to escape to it "on the wings of imagination" from wherever we may be.
Of necessity, I have had to make an island of myself in order to write this book, and I am grateful to good friends and family who have shared the journey with me. In particular, Helen Casey's thoughtful readings of essays in various stages have made this a better book than it would otherwise have been. I am also indebted to the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship in Boston and to friends associated with hospitals named for Albert Schweitzer in Gabon and Haiti. To the editors of the Journal of Haitian Studies, who published a previous version of "Haiti's Heavenly Waters" in 2005, I extend my sincere respect. And to my husband Hans-Peter Müller, who became my guide, refuge, and able "assistant" as these essays took shape, I offer my love and gratitude.

Patti M. Marxsen