SOURCE: "Maybe I'm James Clavell," in The Sunday Times, London, November 2, 1986, pp. 41, 43-4.

In the following essay based on an interview with Clavell, Crosland discusses Clavell's experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II and his writing career.

James Clavell was 18 when he was captured in Java in 1942. The next three years were spent in Changi. Even among Japanese prison camps, Changi was notorious. One in 15 men survived. Not until the early Sixties was Clavell able to write about it in his first novel, King Rat. Yet 10 years after that, he wrote Shogun, the colossal historical novel that seems to be pro Japanese.

When Shogun was televised, Clavell became a millionaire. His fortune spiralled with film rights and continuous reissue of his Asian saga books, each a blockbuster. Whirlwind, about a team of British-based professional helicopter pilots caught up in Iran's nightmare (or is it...