Strangers at the Port - From one of Granta¿s Best of Young British Novelists

Giulia is ten. She has never left the tiny island she lives on. She never wants to.


Her best friend on the island - besides her older sister - is a donkey. She ties ribbons around his head and thinks she will marry him when the time comes.


Her island is one filled with widows. Widows that are watched over by the Shipmaster and his many sons.


It is a place that feels stuck in time - verdant, plentiful, happy, peaceful.


Until the men arrive.


And the vines begin to fail.


And everything changes.