Some Australian islands have been homelands for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for millennia, while colonial culture recognized the potential of islands as ideal prisons, lazarets, and strategic bases, and exploited their romantic associations as perfect idylls. Artists, such as Ian Fairweather, have sought seclusion on islands; despots have sought complete autonomy on islands; and Western scholars have

viewed them as perfect laboratories. This issue of Southerly is framed by a contemplation of island futures by Elaine Stratford, taken from her opening address at the inaugural Australian Small Island Forum held in May 2012. The literary essays focus on the interplay between island fantasies and realities in Australian writing where the island is a powerful site in real and imaginary terms, and David Brooks revises the map of Modernism to include Papua New Guinea and the Trobriand Islands, in view of Bronislaw Malinowski's deep engagement with these island territories.