The Jacaranda Tree

This is a reissue of Bates's acclaimed novel of Burma. During World War II, a small English community are forced to flee when Japanese forces invade Burma. Paterson, the manager of a rice-mill, organises the evacuation and takes with him his Burmese mistress and her young brother. The rest of the party take along their prejudices, their pettiness and their squabbles, and a small enclave of English insularity moves north through Burma. Inevitably, as the journey continues, bitterness, tension and insoluble conflict unfold...Inspired by Bates' period of service in the Eastern theatre of war, The Jacaranda Tree skillfully evokes the atmosphere of Burma during the chaos of invasion. Reissued by Methuen along with The Jacaranda Tree and The Purple Plain and to coincide with the republication in one volume of Bates's acclaimed autobiographies - The Vanished World , The Blossoming World and World in Ripeness .