Penguin Island is a satirical fictional history by Nobel Prize winning French author Anatole France. It is concerned with grandnarratives, mythologizing heroes, hagiography and romantic nationalism.
It is about a fictitious island, inhabited by great auks, that existed off the northern coast of Europe. The history begins when a wayward Christian missionary monk lands on the island and perceives the upright, unafraid auks as a sort of pre-Christian society of noble pagans. Mostly blind and somewhat deaf, having mistaken the animals for humans, he baptizes them. This causes a problem for The Lord, who normally only allows humans to be baptized.
After consulting with saints and theologians in Heaven, He resolves the dilemma by converting the baptized birds to humans with only a few physical traces of their ornithological origin, and giving them each a soul.
- ISBN10 1512032786
- ISBN13 9781512032789
- Publish Date 4 May 2015 (first published 1 October 1968)
- Publish Status Active
- Imprint Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 186
- Language English