The Jacaranda Tree - Softcover

Bates, H. E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140010343 ISBN 13: 9780140010343

Publisher: Penguin, 1974

Synopsis

This is a reissue of Bates's acclaimed novel of Burma. During World War II, a small English community are forced to flee when Japanese forces invade Burma. Paterson, the manager of a rice-mill, organises the evacuation and takes with him his Burmese mistress and her young brother. The rest of the party take along their prejudices, their pettiness and their squabbles, and a small enclave of English insularity moves north through Burma. Inevitably, as the journey continues, bitterness, tension and insoluble conflict unfold...Inspired by Bates' period of service in the Eastern theatre of war, "The Jacaranda Tree" skillfully evokes the atmosphere of Burma during the chaos of invasion. Reissued by Methuen along with "The Jacaranda Tree" and "The Purple Plain" and to coincide with the republication in one volume of Bates's acclaimed autobiographies - "The Vanished World", "The Blossoming World" and "World in Ripeness".

About this title

Review

"'Few writers have a more exact feel for texture - of a flower, a face, a silence - and it is this that has value,' Spectator"

About the Author

H.E. Bates was born in 1905 at Rushden in Northamptonshire and was educated at Kettering Grammar School. He worked as a journalist and clerk on a local newspaper before publishing his first book after which he quickly acquired a reputation for his stories about English country life. During the World War II, he was a squadron leader in the R.A.F. and was commissioned to write stories about service life, which he published under the pseudonym of 'Flying Officer X'. In 1958 the Larkin family appeared for the first time in The Darling Buds of May, the first of the enduringly popular Larkin family novels. Bates was awarded the C.B.E. in 1973 and died in 1974.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1974
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140010343
• ISBN 13: 9780140010343
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256