xv, 208 pages, 6 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm
Contents
Prisoners of the Japanese -- A Town Like Alice and the prisoner of war as Christ-figure -- Ian Watt and the 'myth' of The Bridge on the River Kwai -- King Rat, Empire of the Sun, and the art of survival --Australian prisoner-of-war fiction
Summary
Between December 1941 and May 1942, the Japanese army took more than 130,000 allied prisoners of war, more than a quarter did not survive their imprisonment. Here, Bourke analyses the major novels and films of the prisoners-of-war experience under the Japanese and uncovers the extent to which these fictions have influenced our beliefs