Souls The Gods Had Forsaken

Abandoned at birth, she is raised on a 'sex-slave farm' in China. Raped in Singapore, she escapes with her child. finding refuge in a menacing 'death house.' Her courage meets its severest test when she faces the terror of an invading Japanese army.

A Young Chinese Slave's Fight For Survival This story is set in China and Singapore during the mid-1920s, in Britain during World War II (1939-1945) and in 1947 post-war Singapore. The story is told by Ching-ling whose mother was abandoned at birth in China at a time when infanticide was widespread. Females were considered 'unlucky' by their impoverished parents. Those that were not killed were exchanged for food at 'sex-slave farms' and later sold to brothels in Southeast Asia. Many became slaves to rich Chinese merchants, as happened to Ching-ling's mother. In Singapore she was raped by her 'foster father.' She escaped with the infant Ching-ling, finding work in a 'death-house' in Chinatown where superstitious Chinese sent their aged or ill relatives to die. Ching-ling became a nurse to an invalid Englishwoman and found herself 'caught up' in the war in England while her mother whom she adored,  suffered unspeakable hardships during the Japanese occupation of Singapore.

A veteran Singaporean author, journalist and screenplay writer. Born in Chemor, Perak (Malaya) in 1923 and educated in Singapore, then a British colony. After the surrender of Japan in 1945, he worked as a journalist in Singapore and Hong Kong. He wrote the original stories and screenplays for six feature films produced in Singapore, including the classic Sergeant Hassan. The film had a Royal Charity Premiere in Kuala Lumpur in 1958 in aid of the widows and orphans of members of the Malay Regiment who died heroically before Singapore surrendered to the Japanese on 15 February, 1942. The charity premiere was under the patronage of the King and Queen of Malaysia and rulers of the various Malaysian states. He was a Volunteer truck driver when the Japanese invaded Malaya and Singapore in 1941-42 and was in Singapore during the Japanese occupation (1942-45.) He has written more than a dozen novels and a volume of 31 short stories with Singapore-Malayan backgrounds during the period of British colonial rule. He co-authored The Battlefield Guide: The Japanese Invasion Of Malaya And The Surrender Of Singapore, an international, best-selling (illustrated) chronology with English and Japanese editions.