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  • Published: 5 May 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446469934
  • Imprint: RH AudioGo
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 8 hr 26 min
  • Narrator: Bill Paterson

The Railway Man




Winnre of the NCR Book Award

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.

  • Published: 5 May 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446469934
  • Imprint: RH AudioGo
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 8 hr 26 min
  • Narrator: Bill Paterson

About the author

Eric Lomax

Eric Lomax was born in 1919. During the Second World War he was captured and tortured by the Japanese Army and forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam railway. He met and forgave his torturer in 1995. He died in October 2012.

Praise for The Railway Man

Forget the grueling films, just read the brilliant books

Independent

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.

Tom Peck, Independent

What a great book. What a great man

Harry Ritchie, Daily Mail

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

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

Ian Jack, Guardian

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

Lesley Pearse, Metro

A story worth preserving

Iain Campbell, Stornoway Gazette

A powerful autobiography that shines a light on a difficult period in history

Sally Newall, Independent

Brutally honest, controlled and understated... Lomax’s story is a testament to humanity, in all its forms

Leeds Student Online