To the Kwai – And Back: War Drawings 1939-1945
By Ronald Searle
Souvenir Press, 308pp, £12.99/$19.99
This is a welcome reprint by Souvenir Press of Ronald Searle’s original collection of sketches, first published in 1986. Although almost the same time gap separates that initial publication from when they were drawn and from today’s reissue, the shock and revulsion one feels while looking at the pictures have not dimmed. Those feelings are, if anything, stronger.
Searle was taken prisoner by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore in February 1942. He remained a prisoner until August 1945: 45 months of captivity during which he made hundreds of illicit drawings which, if discovered, would have led to his immediate execution.
