Four Years in a Red Coat (Paperback or Softback)

Before the Japanese Imperial Navy Air Service staged its surprise strike on Pearl Harbor, Miyakatsu Koike lived the privileged life of a Japanese expatriate in the Dutch East Indies. Through the working week he was a conscientious employee of the Yokohama Specie Bank in Surabaya. The rest of his time he could devote to playing golf and tennis, to indulging his hobby photography, and to exploring Java with his wife Fumiko. When his countrymen committed themselves to the 'Greater East Asia War', however, that world came to an abrupt and painful end.

Four Years in a Red Coat presents for the first time in English translation Miyakatsu Koike's wartime diary. It is a keenly observed record of his arrest, his hellish voyage to distant South Australia, his endurance of years in the Loveday Internment Camp, and his return ultimately to a war-ravaged homeland. More than that, it is a testament to one man's calmly stoic triumph over sustained adversity. The scars of his war are indelible, yet Koike emerges from it with his humanity not just intact but enhanced.

Hiroko Cockerill is an honorary research fellow at the University of Queensland, specialising in translation studies. Her research includes books and articles about the translations of Futabatei Shimei. She has translated several books, from Russian to Japanese and from Japanese to English.

Peter Monteath is Professor of History at Flinders University in Adelaide. He has a particular interest in the history of internment and prisoners of war.

Dr Yuriko Nagata is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow with the School of Languages and Cultures of the University of Queensland. Her book Unwanted Aliens (1996, UQ press) is a standard reference work on Japanese internment in Australia during World War II.