"Lost Continent" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in The Starry Rift edited by Jonathan Strahan in 2008.
Ali and his friends all write their numbers, all they've ever been to authority in the camp, on a piece of paper and throw it over the fence attached to a stone, where it is picked up by an activist, who had waved at them with his hand.
In the 2000s, Egan was active in campaigning for refugee rights, including the end of mandatory detention for asylum seekers in Australia, for a few years.
[3] In an interview with David Conyers for Virtual Worlds and Imagined Futures in 2009, Egan called it an "eye-opening experience to see people mistreated in that way", revealing that "Lost Continent" is "an allegory of the whole thing, just to get some of the anger out of my system and move on.
"[6] Greg Johnson writes on the SF Site, that the "mix of here today reality and the imaginative use of science fictional elements is characteristic.