The Devil's Garden : Love and War in Singapore Under the Japanese Flag

Gardens are magical places – images of Nature and Culture, models of paradise, spaces where plants live in war and peace, co-operation and competition. It is 1942 and Singapore is Syonanto, part of the Japanese Empire, where violence and starvation stalk the streets but in the Singapore Botanic Gardens a bizarre tranquillity reigns between warring nations and even love awakes as old identities melt away in the heady atmosphere of the Orchid House. From its unique perspective and with a mixture of humour and romance, The Devil's Garden pictures a formative moment in the emergence of Singapore, where loyalties are less secure than those of the official histories and truth is anything but simple. Love and war in Singapore under the Japanese flag. Gardens are magical places -- images of Nature and Culture, models of paradise, spaces where plants live in war and peace, co-operation and competition. It is 1942 and Singapore is Syonanto, part of the Japanese Empire, where violence and starvation stalk the streets but in the Singapore Botanic Gardens a bizarre tranquillity reigns between warring nations and even love awakes as old identities melt away in the heady atmosphere of the Orchid House. From its unique perspective and with a mixture of humour and romance, this book pictures a formative moment in the emergence of Singapore, where loyalties are less secure than those of the official histories and truth is anything but simple In 1942 Japanese-occupied Singapore, where violence and starvation stalk the streets, a bizarre tranquillity reigns between warring nations in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. This sensitive and humorous work of historical fiction explores a real, and complicated, chapter of Singapore's history in which British scientists avoided jail during WWII and worked with their Japanese counterparts in the pursuit of science, only to be accused of collaboration following the War.