The Genre of Islands: Popular Fiction and Performative Geographies

To date, studies of the contribution literature makes to ideas about islands have concentrated on “high” literature. This has left unexamined the largest proportion of literature featuring islands. If one of the goals of island studies is to interrogate prevailing ideas about “islandness,” then the islands that crowd the storyworlds of popular genres merit close attention. This article focuses on popular fiction to advocate “performative geographies” as a key concept for island studies of literature, and indeed other domains of culture. Popular genres are undeniably sources of distraction and entertainment for billions of readers. However, they are also systems of meaning, which have an immeasurable impact on our geographical awareness and imagination. This article uses critical snapshots of Anglophone island-set crime fiction and popular romance fiction to show the meta-geographical potential of popular novels as they both depict and reflect on islands as performative geographies, or spaces that make and unmake individual and social identities.