The Penal Colony

A foreign journalist arrives on a small Pacific island 200 miles off the coast of South America Once a leper colony the island was later transformed into a prison and then under UN mandate made into an independent republic Yet despite democratic structures the inhabitantswho speak a strange dialect composed of Spanish and Englishstill obey the old prison rules After sending back detailed accounts of the torture and repression seen everywhere the journalist realizes that she has fallen into the trap created for her by the islanders lacking natural resources the islands main export is news