A new book from William Atkins, who won the Stanford Dolman prize for The Immeasurable World, will be published next May by Faber, the company announced yesterday. In Exiles: Three Island Journeys, Atkins travels to the places where three people were banished at the height of European colonialism: Louise Michel, a French anarchist (New Caledonia in the South Pacific); Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, a Zulu prince (St Helena in the South Atlantic), and Lev Shternberg, a Ukrainian revolutionary (Sakhalin Island, off the coast of Siberia).

Atkins said: “‘Exile’ is a word that has haunted me all my adult life; this book is my attempt to grapple with its meanings, by following the journeys of three people I came to love and admire.”

Laura Hassan, associate publisher at Faber, said the book was “a moving, empathetic exploration of exile that will resonate in our era of mass human displacement. Part biography, part travel, part history, Exiles will cement Atkins’s reputation as one of our greatest writers of place.”

Atkins is guest editor of a special edition of Granta magazine on travel writing, due to be published next month.