Elobey, Annobón and Corisco

Elobey, Annobón, and Corisco was a colonial administration of Spanish Africa, consisting of the small islands of Elobey Grande, Elobey Chico, Annobón, and Corisco, located in the Gulf of Guinea. Its total area was under 36 km², and the estimated population in 1910 was 2,950 people. The capital was Santa Isabel. The islands are presently part of Equatorial Guinea. Elobey Grande, Elobey Chico and Corisco now part part of the Litoral Province within the Continental Region of Equatorial Guinea, while Annobón constitutes a province in its own right within the Insular Region.

Postage stamps and fiction

The American author William Styron wrote a short vignette entitled Elobey, Annobón, and Corisco, about his time as a young Marine officer during World War II. His childhood memories of stamp collecting (including stamps from the Guinean islands) are a welcome distraction from the dread and fear he feels when he thinks of the approaching Battle of Okinawa. Although written in 1985, the vignette was not published until 2009, in the collection of Marine-related short stories The Suicide Run (Random House 2009).

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