Listening to Letter from America

This novel is based on the true stories of a group of elderly people in Singapore who survived World War II. Meeting regularly in an elderly day-care centre, they lamented that their sacrifices in defending the country against the Japanese invaders were forgotten by the present generation. During the group meetings, they recalled the horrors of the war years, especially the massacre of young Chinese men and women in Singapore. Inspired by the BBC programme Letter from America by the journalist Alistair Cooke, they share their World War II experiences--thus began the psychological healing and restoration of their self-esteem.

Kua Ee Heok is a Consultant Psychiatrist at the National University Hospital, Singapore. He graduated as a doctor from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur and received his training in Psychiatry at Oxford University and Geriatric Psychiatry at Harvard University. This novel is based on the true stories of many elderly people who survived the atrocities of Japanese occupation in Singapore during the Second World War. The interviews were conducted when he was a member of the World Health Organisation team for the global study of dementia.