The Way of a Boy A Memoir of Java

Hillen, Ernest

ISBN 10: 0670850497 / ISBN 13: 9780670850495

Published by Viking, London, 1994

About this Item

Minor shelf wear to unclipped DJ. ; Red cloth boards with gilt lettering to spine. Nice tight copy, no names or marks inside, appears unread and near as new. DJ design uncredited. ; B&W Photographs; 208 pages; When Ernest Hillen was just seven years old, living on a colonial tea plantation, his idyllic world came to an abrupt and violent end. It was 1942 and the Japanese had invaded the island of Java and soon young Ernest was going to spend the next three and a half years in the cruel conditions of an internment camp. He comes to understand his new world by observing others: Japanese soldiers, fellow prisoners and his mother, who fights to retain her moral values amidst brutal deprivation and degradation. To survive, he is obliged to master such basic skills as lying, stealing and fighting. But he also learns to practise patience, generosity and self-control, to quell self-pity, to take nothing for granted and to trust only with caution.

Seller Inventory # 28952

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Way of a Boy A Memoir of Java
• Publisher: Viking, London
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670850497
• ISBN 13: 9780670850495
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First British Edition; First Printing.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+

About this title

Synopsis

This is a chronicle of the years Ernest Hillen spent as a little boy (aged 8-11) in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp on Java. The year is 1942, World War II is raging and the Japanese have just invaded the island. Overnight - and for the next three and a half years - life is ruled by tension, fear and unpredictability as the boy struggles to endure the cruel camp conditions. Ernest comes to understand his new world by observing others: Japanese soldiers, fellow prisoners and his mother, who fights to retain her moral values amidst brutal deprivation and degradation. To survive, young Ernest is obliged to master such basic skills as lying, stealing and fighting. But he also learns to practise patience, generosity and self-control, to quell self-pity, to take nothing for granted and to trust only with caution.