Alex Stone

'For this Pacific of ours is full of entangled histories. As in the stick maps of oceanic navigators, even the space is filled with portent.' The ill-starred love affair of Kanak Chief Atai and Madame Marguerite X Fournier, Nouvelle Caledonie 1878

There’s a sail on the horizon. Not really a sail. More like a blanket on a stick. And today is suddenly going off-script. The trauma of others intrudes. And I’m to be their savior. Winner MIT IKA Creative Writing Prize 2016.

The entire world knows me. Recognises me. And yet I remain anonymously un-loved. This is because I am possessed of a voice, you see, that has made me my fortune. And yet, contributed nothing to my happiness.

This we know, for it is historical fact: that in June 1879, at Msansi Bay just north of Dar es Salaam, four Indian elephants were unloaded to begin a fateful trek into the heart of Africa. Runner-up AUT Creative Writing Prize 2012.

This is my conceit: That we machines can see the future. That humans cannot. That we need people to invent us, to manufacture us, only to make that future real; and then to see it for themselves.