To the Kwai and Back: War Drawings 1939 - 1945 - Hardcover

Ronald Searle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0285637452 ISBN 13: 9780285637450

Publisher: Souvenir Press Ltd, 2006

Synopsis

In 1939, as an art student, Ronald Searle volunteered for the army. Called up in September, he embarked for Singapore in 1941, where, within a month of his arrival, he was taken as a prisoner of the Japanese.

After fourteen months in a prisoner-of-war camp Ronald Searle was sent north, to work camp on the Burma Star. In May 1944 he was sent to the notorious Changi Gaol in Singapore and was one of the few British soldiers to survive imprisonment there. Throughout his captivity, despite the risk, Ronald Searle made drawings, determinded to record his experiences. He drew his fellow prisoners, and their Japanese guards and he recorded historic moments; the Japanese triumphantly entering Singapore, the planes dropping leaflets that announced the end of the war.

The drawings in this remarkable book were hidden by Searle and smuggled from place to place, stained with the sweat and dirt of his captivity. They are a record of one man's war, and are among the most important, and moving, accounts of the Second World War. They document the sacrifice of those who served in the Far East and are testimony to Ronald Searle's unique talent.

About this title

Review:

"You would have a struggle to name a greater cartoonist of the 20th Century, or, indeed, of any other century. Searle forged his life's path in comedy rather than tragedy, for those who have been into the deepest, darkest abyss, the only way is up, towards the light."- Craig Brown, 'Mail on Sunday'

"This is a monumentally important book... More than just a drawn record of mainly unphotographed events. It is also a hugely moving indictment of man's inhumanity to man that not even Goya's The Disasters of War can surpass... This book should never be out of print." - Peter Brookes, 'The Times'

To the Kwai - and Back is a handsome, and moving testimony to the sacrifice involved in the tragedy of war." --'Daily Mail'

"As a young soldier, the artist Ronald Searle was imprisoned by the Japanese in conditions of the utmost horror. He never stopped drawing... his art enabled him to endure the unendurable." --'Sunday Telegraph'

"Unique... one of the finest illustrators of the past century." --Gerald Scarfe, 'The Independent'

Book Description:

In 1941 Ronald Searle became a prisoner-of-war in Burma, 'To the Kwai - and Back' is a record (in drawings and sketches) that record his experiences as a labourer on the Burma Railway and in Changi prison.

About this edition

• Publisher: Souvenir Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0285637452
• ISBN 13: 9780285637450
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192