King Rat

With powerful, never-before-published material from the original manuscript, here for the first time is the complete, uncut edition of King Rat, the fourth novel in James Clavell's bestselling Asian Saga. Set against the seething backdrop of a World War II prison camp in Japanese-occupied territory, King Rat is an epic novel of savagery and survival - and of one man's all-consuming struggle for dominance over captives and captors alike. Vivid new passages bring Clavell's now-classic story out of the confines of a brutal prison camp and into the outside world ... into the lives of the women deprived of their men, living on memories, hopes, and regret - women whose extraordinary courage transcends the madness that surrounds them.

James Clavell, the son of a Royal Navy family, was educated in Portsmouth before, as a young artillery officer, he was captured by the Japanese at the Fall of Singapore. It was on this experience that his bestselling novel KING RAT was based. He maintained this oriental interest in his other great works: TAI-PAN, SHOGUN, NOBLE HOUSE and GAI JIN. Clavell lived for many years in Vancouver and Los Angeles, before settling in Switzerland, where he died in 1994.