Treasured Islands: Journeys to African Isles

by Justin Fox

Writer and explorer Justin Fox sets off on a series of thrilling journeys around Africa.

Embarking on floatplanes, catamarans, dhows, helicopters, sailing dinghies, a century-old schooner and a Renaissance caravel, Fox explores some of the continent’s most far-flung and beguiling islands.

Inspired by a lifetime of reading, his travels trace the themes that knit these islands together or stand them apart, be they tropical and palm-fringed or wild and granitic, prison keeps or romantic idylls, laboratories of evolution or rocky redoubts.

His journey takes him to fascinating Atlantic islands such as São Tomé, Cape Verde and Ascension; southern islands such as Robben, Dassen and Ilha de Moçambique; as well as Indian Ocean gems such as Réunion, Mafia and Lamu. From the prisons of Robben and St Helena, and the plantation isles of Mauritius and Zanzibar, to modern incarnations of Eden on Mnemba, Bazaruto and the Seychelles, Fox explores the rich variety and intoxicating allure of these sea-girt treasures.

This adventure-filled travelogue is a deep dive into the history, culture and ecology, but also the magnetic appeal of Africa’s islands.

288 pages

Published January 1, 2026

About the author

Fox is a novelist, travel writer and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa, and is the former editor of Getaway travel magazine. He was a Rhodes Scholar and received a doctorate in English literature from Oxford University after which he was a research fellow at the University of Cape Town, where he taught part time for 20 years. His articles and photographs have appeared internationally in a number of publications and on a wide range of topics, while his short stories and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies. He has written scripts and directed award-winning documentaries and is a two-time Mondi journalism award winner (1999 and 2004). Recent books include The Marginal Safari (Umuzi), The Impossible Five (Tafelberg), Beat Routes (Karavan), Place (Umuzi) and, most recently, a World War II series of novels, starting with The Cape Raider (Penguin and Sapere) and The Wolf Hunt (Sapere). Justin was longlisted for the 2011 Alan Paton Award for non-fiction, the 2012 Olive Schreiner Prize for Literature, and his debut novel, Whoever Fears the Sea (Umuzi 2014), was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize for African literature.