Agnes Newton Keith

Agnes Keith was born in 1901 in Illinois but grew up in Hollywood long before "Tinsel Town" became what it is today. In 1934 she married Henry ("Harry") George Keith, an Englishman whom she had first met as a childhood friend of her brother. Harry was on leave from Sandakan where he had lived since 1925 and where he served as Conservator of Forests, Director of Agriculture, and Curator of the Museum for the government of British North Borneo. Sandakan then was the capital of North Borneo, a territory that was an anomaly, governed by a company, the British North Borneo Chartered Company. Agnes accompanied Harry back to Sandakan where she was introduced to the life of a 'memsahib' in an isolated British colonial community in an exotic land. Over the next five years, Agnes documented her observations and experiences in a highly personal series of articles that were published in her first book "Land Below the Wind" that won the Atlantic Monthly annual prize for non-fiction in 1939. Agnes writes with sensitivity and humour, capturing the essence of colonial life from the perspective of an American expat and describing the local people - Chinese, Murut, and Malay - with affection and sympathy. As the book draws to a close and the Keiths prepare to leave Sandakan on home leave after five years, the ominous clouds of war are looming, illustrated by an accidental encounter between the young daughter of the Chinese consul, a neighbor of the Keiths, and the Japanese consul and his wife who are guests for tea at the Keith house. After their leave, the Keiths returned to Sandakan where their son George was born. Soon they were engulfed by war and the family of three was interned with the small British community, first in a camp on Pulau Berhala off Sandakan and then at the notorious Batu Lintang camp near Kuching, Sarawak, where Agnes and little George were separated from Harry until the war ended and liberation came in 1945. All through their captivity Agnes secretly kept notes of their horrific experience that were published after the war in her second book "Three Came Home" (made into a film in 1950 starring Claudette Colbert). Agnes, Harry, and George returned to Sandakan after the war and rebuilt their house that had been destroyed in the war. Their subsequent years in North Borneo were the subject of Agnes's third book, "White Man Returns.".