To The Kwai - and Back 

War Drawings 1939-1945

by Ronald Searle

William Collins Sons & Co., 1986, [First Edition], reproduction photographs, illustrations and plates throughout, hardcover, dustjacket, ISBN 0002174367

Fine Condition.  Book in fine condition, dustjacket is price-clipped with minor edge and shelf wear

'Throughout his captivity Ronald Searle made drawings, determined - despite the risk - to record his experiences.  He drew his fellow prisoners and his Japanese guards; he sketched places and people glimpsed while on the move; he recorded significant events - the triumphant Japanese entering Singapore, the notorious Selerang Incident, the planes dropping leaflets announcing the end of the war.  Stained with the seat and dirt of forty years ago, the drawings in this book are a remarkable record of one man's war, what Ronald Searle calls 'the graffiti of a condemned man, intending to leave a rough witness of his passing through, but who found himself - to his surprise and delight - among the reprieved.'
Published here for the first time, together with Ronald Searle's own account of his captivity, these drawings will be recognised as one of the most important - and most moving - records of the Second World War.'