University Island is a novel in verse, set in the Classical world and inspired by a real university's recent travails. This work's profound theme is the slow physical and psychological collapse of its likable, self-satirizing ‘failed lecturer’ who challenges the politicized, devalued academic system. Ultimately, he becomes trapped by the systematic paranoia that has robbed higher education of its integrity and autonomy. The text explores the loss of the communal space of ideas, and links the psychological collapse of the scholar to the physical destruction of the natural world. University Island serves as a sobering, prophetic critique of a self-destructive and censorious system and yet the book's scope is much wider than a specific contemporary context.
