The Last Colony: An Experience of Reunion Island

The author describes his journey into the heart of this tropical French island. He describes his arrival and experiences on the volcanic island 63 kilometres long and 45 wide where tropical beaches edged with coral are almost within sight of a 3,000 metre-high snow-capped mountain.
Passing through speech therapy, economics, educational practice and European politics he describes the flood of events that occurred during his brief stay. The journey takes him through the struggle to find work, and subsequent involvement with a bizarre legal system and encounters with a plethora of strange characters from Nazi soldiers and lunatics through gangsters and tourists to doctors. He describes the strange witchcraft and shamanistic practices, the corrupt politics of a modern colonial state, and his involvement with two separate murders. He is threatened with legal action on several occasions, attacked on Christmas morning and suffers a near fatal illness.
He also describes his experiences while hitch-hiking, his involvement with motorbikes, the rich flora and topography of the island, the establishment and running of a business, the Island’s unique attractions, the active volcano and the three other volcanic amphitheatres, the behaviour of cyclones, the psychology of perception, the vagaries of the French language and the native Creole culture.