Nationality Australian Role Writer | Name Russell Braddon Occupation novelist | |
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Full Name Russell Reading Braddon Movies Night of the Lepus, End Play Books The Naked Island, The Year of the Angry Rabbit, Nancy Wake, The inseparables, The thirteenth trick Similar People William F Claxton, Tim Burstall, George Mallaby, Colin Burgess | ||
Jaythestingray Reviews Night of the Lepus - Week 97
Russell Reading Braddon (25 January 1921 – 20 March 1995) was an Australian writer of novels, biographies and TV scripts. His chronicle of his four years as a prisoner of war, The Naked Island, sold more than a million copies.
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Braddon was born in Sydney, Australia, the son of a barrister. He served in the Malayan campaign during World War II. He was held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese in Pudu and Changi prisons and on the Thailand-Burma Railway between 1942 and 1945. During this time he met Ronald Searle, whose Changi sketches illustrate The Naked Island.
After the war, he went on to study law at University of Sydney after quitting the army in 1946 but failed to get a degree in 1948 after losing interest on the subject.
In 1949, Braddon moved to England after suffering a mental breakdown and followed by a suicide attempt which doctors said need a year of recuperating as a result of his POW experience. He described his writing career as "beginning by chance". The Naked Island, published in 1952, was one of the first accounts of a Japanese prisoner of war's experience.
Braddon went on to produce a wide range of works, including novels, biographies, histories, TV scripts and newspaper articles. He was also a broadcaster on radio and television. He died in 1995 at his home in Urunga after returning to Australia in 1993.
Proud Australian Boy: A Biography of Russell Braddon by Nigel Starck was published in Australia in 2011.
Works
Novels
Non-fiction
Broadcasts