Island of the World is the story of a child born in 1933 into the turbulent world of the Balkans and tracing his life into the third millennium. The central character is Josip Lasta, the son of an impoverished school teacher in a remote village high in the mountains of the Bosnian interior. As the novel begins, World War II is underway and the entire region of Yugoslavia is torn by conflicting factions: German and Italian occupying armies, and the rebel forces that resist them — the fascist Ustashe, Serb nationalist Chetniks, and Communist Partisans. As events gather momentum, hell breaks loose, and the young and the innocent are caught in the path of great evils. Their only remaining strength is their religious faith and their families.

For more than a century, the confused and highly inflammatory history of former Yugoslavia has been the subject of numerous books, many of them rife with revisionist history and propaganda. The peoples of the Balkans live on the border of three worlds: the Islamic, the Orthodox Slavic East, and Catholic Europe, and as such they stand in the path of major world conflicts that are not only geo-political but fundamentally spiritual. This novel cuts to the core question: how does a person retain his identity, indeed his humanity, in absolutely dehumanizing situations?

In the life of the central character, the author demonstrates that this will demand suffering and sacrifice, heroism and even holiness. When he is twelve years old, his entire world is destroyed, and so begins a lifelong Odyssey to find again the faith which the blows of evil have shattered. The plot takes the reader through Josip's youth, his young manhood, life under the Communist regime, hope and loss and unexpected blessings, the growth of his creative powers as a poet, and the ultimate test of his life. Ultimately this novel is about the crucifixion of a soul — and resurrection.

An extract from the author’s novel, Sophia House

Once there was a boy who was prince of a kingdom in the mountains of the east. His father the King went away when the child was very young, barely able to walk, for the Queen had died and the man could not bear for a time to enter the house of his first and only love. The King intended to be away briefly, for he loved his son dearly but wished to hide his grief from the people. In the forest, wandering alone and in distress, he happened upon that beast which is called the serpent, the ancient deceiver of mankind, and it overcame him and ate him there. No word of it ever reached the palace.

Sophia House is set in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. Pawel Tarnowski, a bookseller, gives refuge to a Jewish youth (David Schäfer) who has escaped from the Ghetto, and hides him in the attic of the book shop. Throughout the winter of 1942-43, haunted by the looming threat of discovery, the two discuss good and evil, sin and redemption, literature and philosophy, and their respective religious views of reality. Decades later David becomes a convert to Catholicism and is the Carmelite priest, Fr. Elijah, called by the Pope to confront the Antichrist in Michael O'Brien's novel, Father Elijah: an apocalypse. In this "prequel" the author explores the meaning of love, religious identity, and sacrifice viewed from two distinct perspectives.