The Railway Man

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What to expect

A naive young man, a railway enthusiast and radio buff, was caught up in the fall of the British Empire at Singapore in 1942. He was put to work on the 'Railway of Death' - the Japanese line from Thailand to Burma. Exhaustively and brutally tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio, Lomax was emotionally ruined by his experiences. Almost 50 years after the war, however, his life was changed by the discovery that his interrogator, the Japanese interpreter, was still alive - their reconciliation is the culmination of this extraordinary story.

Critics Review

What a great book. What a great man
Daily Mail
Forget the grueling films, just read the brilliant books
Independent
This beautiful, awkward book tells the story of a fine and awkward man. Here, I think, is an account that rises above mere timeliness and comes near to being a classic of autobiography
Guardian
When I turned to the book, the complexity of Lomax's emotions came alive and burned off the page
Independent
Of all the billions of words that have been written about the Second World War, with the exception of Churchill's Nobel Prize winning history, it is not an exaggeration to say there is no account of it more worth reading that this. Wistfully romantic, historically important, startling, horrifying and ultimately electrifyingly uplifting, The Railway Man is as indispensable as any book can be.
Independent
This is a harrowing but very honest and ultimately compassionate memoir
Herald
Now is the time to read the true life story of Scot Eric Lomax... A story of courage and survival
Daily Record
It made me cry, I felt angry at man’s inhumanity to man and yet uplifted by the way Eric finally came to terms with the suffering he’d endured and was able to forgive
Metro
A story worth preserving
Stornoway Gazette
A powerful autobiography that shines a light on a difficult period in history
Independent

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