Agnes Newton Keith 1

Agnes Newton Keith

Portrait of Agnes Newton Keith

Agnes Jones Goodwillie Newton Keith (July 4, 1901 – March30, 1982) was an American author best known for her threeautobiographical accounts of life in North Borneo (now Sabah)before, during, and after the Second World War. The second ofthese, Three Came Home, tells of her time in Japanese POW andcivilian internee camps in North Borneo and Sarawak, and wasmade into a film in 1950. She published seven books in all.

Early life

Agnes Newton Keith was born Agnes Newton in Oak Park,Illinois. Her family moved to Hollywood, California when she wasvery young. Her father was one of the founders of the Del MonteCompany. The family moved again when Agnes was ten, this timeto the nearby beach community of Venice, California, for herbrother Al's health.[1] She attended the University of California,Berkeley for four years, and upon graduating got a job with theSan Francisco Examiner.[2] Eight months after starting herjournalism career, she was attacked by an assailant who was convinced that the newspaper was persecuting him byprinting Krazy Kat cartoons. She received serious head injuries which affected her memory. She also becameseriously depressed, and after two years of illness her father sent her and her brother Al to Europe to recuperate.Returning refreshed to the States, Agnes decided to become a writer, but soon afterwards lost her eyesight for twoyears as a delayed result of her injuries. During this period she studied dancing, modelled clothes and 'did bits in themovies'.[3]

In 1934 she married Henry G. Keith, known as Harry. Keith, an Englishman, had been a friend of Al's when bothboys had been at the same school in San Diego, and Agnes had first met him when she was eight years old. Keithhad gone on to work for the Government of North Borneo, and Agnes had not seen him in ten years when he visitedCalifornia while on leave in 1934. However, as soon as they re-met they decided to get married, and were wed threedays later. Three months after their marriage, following an operation to cure Agnes's eyesight, they sailed forBorneo.[4]

Life in BorneoHarry was Conservator of Forests and Director of Agriculture for the government of North Borneo under theChartered Company, and was also Honorary Curator of the Sandakan (State) Museum. He had worked in Borneosince 1925, and was based in Sandakan.[5] Agnes spent an idyllic five years at Sandakan, sometimes accompanyingher husband on trips into the interior of the country. Harry persuaded her to write about her experiences and enter itin the 1939 Atlantic Monthly Non-fiction Prize contest. The judges voted unanimously for her entry to win, and itwas partly serialized in the magazine before being published in November of that year as Land Below the Wind. Thebook received favorable reviews: The Scotsman described it as "A delightful book ... It has abundant humour and apervading charm ... An original and engaging description of a country and people of extraordinary interest."[6]

The Keiths were on leave in Canada when war was declared on 3 September 1939. Harry was immediately orderedback to Borneo. Agnes's first child, Henry George Newton Keith, known as George, was born in Sandakan on 5April 1940.[7]

Agnes Newton Keith 2

Agnes Newton Keith (left) speaking with Major T. T.Johnson, 2/6 Field Park Company (centre) and Brigadier T.C. Eastick (right), Commander of the Kuching Force of the

Australian 9th Division, shortly after the Australiansliberated the camp at Batu Lintang, Kuching on 11

September 1945.

The Japanese invading forces landed in Sandakan on 19January 1942. For the first few months of occupation, theKeiths were allowed to stay in their own home. On 12 MayAgnes and George were imprisoned on Berhala Island (PulauBerhala) near Sandakan, in a building that had once been theGovernment Quarantine Station, along with other Westernwomen and children. Harry was imprisoned nearby.[8] Theyspent eight months there before Agnes and George were sentto Kuching in Sarawak. They left by a small steamer on 12January 1943 and arrived on January 20.[9] They wereimprisoned in Batu Lintang camp near Kuching, unusual inthat it accommodated both prisoners of war and civilianinternees in between eight and ten separate compounds.[10]

Harry later arrived at the camp.[11] The camp was finallyliberated on 11 September 1945 by the 9th Australian ArmyDivision under the command of Brigadier T. C. Eastick.[12]

All three members of the Keith family had survived theirinternment.

Although punishable by death if discovered, many inmates ofthe camp, both civilian and POW, kept diaries and notes about their imprisonment.[10] [13] One of Agnes's fellowfemale internees, Hilda E. Bates, described Agnes in her diary entry dated 21 September 1944:

"Among my companions in camp are some outstanding personalities, and the following [is one] of these.Mrs A.K. - a noted American novelist, who proposes to [write] a book on our life here. She is muchsought after by the Japanese Camp Commandant, as he has read one of her previous books aboutBorneo. He evidently holds the opinion that a cup of [coffee] given in his office, and a packet of biscuitsas a gift for her small son, will ensure him appearing as a hero in said book!

"Mrs A.K. has an unusual appearance, being six feet in height, very thin, and with the stealthy lops of aRed Indian. She dresses in a startling and very flamboyant fashion, in very bright colours, while her hairis worn in two plaits, one over each shoulder, thus adding to a slightly Indian aura!".[10]

Mary Baldwin, a 70-year old fellow-internee, did not get on well with Keith, suspecting that she was "too ready to bepolite and co-operative with the Japanese guards and their officers in return for favours - notably food and medicinefor her infant son."[14] Co-operation with their captors was very much frowned on by the prisoners, althoughunderstandable in this case, given Keith's no doubt powerful desire to provide for her son.

Agnes Newton Keith 3

Book cover of Three Came Home (NBDoes not show the Keiths)

After their liberation and a short period on Labuan Island for rest andrecuperation, the Keiths returned to Victoria, British Columbia, where Harryhad had a small country house since his bachelor days. In February 1946 hewas asked to return to Borneo by the new Colonial Administration which hadtaken over from the Chartered Company. He was to be in charge of foodproduction. He agreed to go, and so he and his family were split yet again.Agnes and George remained in Victoria, and Agnes worked her second book,an autobiographical account of her imprisonment: on her release Agnes hadgathered up her notes and diary entries from their various hiding places,[15]

and she used them as the basis for her book, Three Came Home, which waspublished in April 1947. It detailed the hardships and deprivations which theinternees and POWs had undergone under the Japanese, and became abestseller. In 1950, it was turned into a motion picture, with Claudette Colbertplaying the role of Agnes.

Agnes and George finally returned to Sandakan in 1947, a full year afterHarry.[16] Borneo was a much-changed place, having suffered doubly, firstunder the Japanese occupation and then from the ferocious Allied attacks as

the liberation of the island took place. In 1951 the third book in Agnes's Borneo trilogy was published and was titledWhite Man Returns. This chronicled the time from Agnes's and George's return to Borneo up to December 1950.[17]

The Keiths remained in Sandakan until 1952.

It is unclear when Agnes's and Harry's daughter, Jean Allison Keith, was born. Copies of White Man Returns arededicated "To my children George and Jean". It has been stated that Jean will be invited to the celebrations for thereissue of Land Below the Wind in Sabah on 6 July 2007.[18]

Newlands

Newlands, the postwar home of the Keiths inSandakan. Photo taken in Dec 2007.

On arriving in Sandakan in 1934, Agnes moved in to Harry'sbachelor bungalow, but the couple soon relocated to a governmentbuilding on a hilltop. They lived there until they were interned in1942. After the war the Keiths returned to Sandakan to find thehouse destroyed. They built a new house in 1946-47 on theoriginal footprint and in a similar style to the original. They namedthis house Newlands and lived there until they left Sabah in 1952.After nearly fifty years of gradual deterioration, first under tenantsand then as an empty shell, the house was restored by SabahMuseum in collaboration with the Federal Department ofMuseums and Antiquities in 2001. The house is a rare survival ofpost-war colonial wooden architecture. It was opened to the publicin 2004 and is a popular tourist attraction. It contains displays onAgnes and Harry Keith as well as information about colonial life in Sandakan in the first half of the twentiethcentury, and is commonly referred to as the Agnes Keith House.[19]

Agnes Newton Keith 4

Philippines, Libya and later yearsIn 1953 Harry joined the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, and was posted to thePhilippines, based in Manila. Agnes wrote Bare Feet in the Palace about post-war life in the Philippines,culminating in the 1953 election. It was published in 1955.Harry then became FAO Representative in Libya, and served six years as forestry adviser in the country. He retiredin 1964.[20] True to form, Agnes wrote about her experiences in the country, publishing Children of Allah, betweenthe Sea and the Sahara in 1966.In 1959 Agnes was named an Alpha Gamma Delta Distinguished Citizen.[21] The Keiths retired to British Columbia,where Agnes continued writing. Her first novel, Beloved Exiles, was published in 1972. It was set in North Borneo inthe period between 1936 and 1951. Her last book, Before the Blossoms Fall: Life and Death in Japan, was publishedin 1975.Agnes Newton Keith died at age 80 in Oak Bay, British Columbia. Harry died the same year.

The Keiths' libraryBoth Agnes and Harry Keith were ardent bibliophiles. Following their deaths, their collection of books anddocuments on Borneo and South East Asia was auctioned in 2002. The collection numbered over 1,000 volumes, andhad been gathered over many years. Agnes wrote of the collection, which they were forced to abandon to theoccupying Japanese forces, in Three Came Home: "Harry's library of Borneo books, perhaps the most complete inexistence, his one self-indulgence...".[22] The auction press release commented that "Many of these items are notlisted in any institutional holdings, including the British Library, and may well be the only surviving extantcopies".[23]

LegacyThe title of Agnes's first book about the then-North Borneo, Land Below the Wind, has become the unofficial mottoof Sabah. The phrase was used by sailors to describe all the lands south of the typhoon belt, but Agnes popularisedthe special connection of the phrase with Sabah, by applying it exclusively to North Borneo in her book.[24]

As well as inspiring the film of the same name, Three Came Home has been cited as one of the sources for cinematicand television depictions of women in Japanese camps during World War II. Paradise Road and Tenko both containscenes based on episodes in the book.

Works by Agnes Newton Keith• Land Below the Wind Boston, Mass, Little Brown and Company (1939, November)• Three Came Home Boston, Mass, Little Brown and Company (1947, April)• White Man Returns Boston, Mass, Little Brown and Company (1951)• Bare Feet in the Palace Boston, Mass, Little Brown and Company (1955)• Children of Allah, between the Sea and the Sahara Boston, Mass, Little Brown and Company (1966)• Beloved Exiles Boston, Mass, Little Brown and Company (1972)• Before the Blossoms Fall: Life and Death in Japan Boston, Mass, Atlantic Monthly-Little, Brown and Company

(1975)• Agnes Newton Keith also had articles published in The Atlantic Monthly.

Agnes Newton Keith 5

Further reading• Moo-Tan, Stella (2002) "A Portrait of Agnes Newton Keith: Noted Author, Survivor, Heroine" Sabah Society

Journal 19• Ooi, Keat Gin (1998) Japanese Empire in the Tropics: Selected Documents and Reports of the Japanese Period in

Sarawak, Northwest Borneo, 1941-1945 Ohio University Center for International Studies, Monographs inInternational Studies, SE Asia Series 101

Citations[1] Agnes Newton Keith (1955). Three Came Home. Mermaid Books, Michael Joseph, London. pp. 14–15.[2] Agnes Newton Keith (1958). Land Below the Wind. Michael Joseph, London. pp. 17–18.[3] Keith 1955, pp.15-16.[4] Keith 1955, p.16[5] Keith 1958, pp.15-16[6] Keith 1958, dustjacket[7] Keith 1955, pp.13, 16-17[8] Keith 1955, pp.31-39[9] Keith 1955, pp.68-74[10] Ooi Keat Gin (1998). Japanese Empire in the Tropics. Ohio University Center for International Studies, Monographs in International

Studies, SE Asia Series 101. pp. 569–570, 139.[11] Keith 1955, p.82[12] Ooi 1998, pp.329, 569-570, 626-627[13] Keith 1955, p.93[14] "War" (http:/ / www. far-eastern-heroes. org. uk/ Baldwin/ html/ war. htm). . Retrieved 25 April 2007.[15] Keith 1955, p.203[16] Agnes Newton Keith (1956). White Man Returns. Mermaid Books, Michael Joseph, London. pp. 15–19.[17] Keith 1956[18] ""Land Below the Wind" to be reissued" (http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20070223234630/ http:/ / www. newsabahtimes. com. my/ nstweb/

fullstory/ 4852). 3 February 2007. Archived from the original (http:/ / www. newsabahtimes. com. my/ nstweb/ fullstory/ 4852) on 23February 2007. . Retrieved 12 February 2007.

[19] Leslie A.K. James. "Visit to "Newlands", the Agnes Newton Keith House" (http:/ / www. badanwarisan. org. my/ content/ ?cid=117). BadanWarisan Malaysia/Heritage Malaysia Trust. . Retrieved 12 February 2007.

[20] Anon. "News of the World" (http:/ / www. fao. org/ docrep/ 03500e/ 03500e0a. htm#TopOfPage). Unasylva: An International Review ofForestry and Forest Products for the FAO, United Nations Vol 18(1) No 72, 1964. . Retrieved 12 February 2007.

[21] Anon. "Alpha Gamma Delta" (http:/ / www. alphagammadelta. org/ content/ about/ accomplished. htm). . Retrieved 19 April 2007.[22] Keith 1955, p.37[23] Anon. "Press Release: Butterfields’ June Sale of Fine Books & Manuscripts Features Harold & Agnes Keith Collection of Borneo and

Southeast Asian Literature" (http:/ / www. e-borneo. com/ insideborneo/ leisure0206. html). . Retrieved 12 February 2007.[24] "Natural History Publications (Borneo) Land Below the Wind (Japanese edition)" (http:/ / www. nhpborneo. com/ onlinestore/

product_details. asp?id=870). . Retrieved 12 February 2007.

External links• Tourist information for Newlands, Agnes Newton Keith's house in Sandakan (http:/ / www. sabahtourism. com/

attraction. php?ID=92)• Report on a trip by members of Heritage of Malaysia Trust to Newlands (http:/ / www. badanwarisan. org. my/

content/ ?cid=117)• Press release on the auction of the Keiths' library in 2002 (http:/ / www. e-borneo. com/ insideborneo/

leisure0206. html)• Contemporary review of White Man Returns in Time magazine, 6 August 1951 (http:/ / www. time. com/ time/

magazine/ article/ 0,9171,856914,00. html)

Article Sources and Contributors 6

Article Sources and ContributorsAgnes Newton Keith  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=410572271  Contributors: Allysia, Biruitorul, BrainyBabe, Dmz5, Foofbun, Frecklefoot, Huaiwei, JIP, Jasper33, JosephSolis in Australia, Kawaputra, Lightmouse, Michael David, MisfitToys, Rich Farmbrough, Rjwilmsi, SailorAlphaCentauri, Tassedethe, Tjmayerinsf, Tocasia, Two hundred percent, WarrenA,Yamamoto Ichiro, 17 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsImage:AgnesNewtonKeith.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:AgnesNewtonKeith.jpg  License: unknown  Contributors: AllysiaImage:Awm116941.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Awm116941.jpg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Jasper33Image:Agnes newton keith.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Agnes_newton_keith.jpg  License: unknown  Contributors: Allysia, Amatulic, Skier DudeImage:Newlands-the-home-of-Agnes-Newton-Keith-Sabah-Borneo.JPG  Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Newlands-the-home-of-Agnes-Newton-Keith-Sabah-Borneo.JPG  License: GNU Free Documentation License  Contributors: Warren Apel

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