From: Andrew Carpenter
Location: France
Date: 06/06/2009
Dear Greg,
I concur with your admiration of Msr Ballard..he was a top author. His story of life inside a Japanese concentration camp was vivid and bold. My Aunt (Marie Kwan Torres) lived in Shanghai before the outbreak of war..she was put in a camp (I cant spell interred, sorry) became a Shintu Bhudist and married the camp Commander.
He eventually killed himself in the ritual manner and she hiked up with a German lesbian and somehow drove a chinese Army jeep all the way to Spain from China.
She was the Mother of Nancy Kwan the actress (World of Suzy Wong) and Keung Kwan the Australian architect. I'm very proud of my cousins, but I'm more proud of my Aunt (who knew Ballard)
Unfortunately my Aunt didn't write a diary, but I think that road trip between China and Spain would have blown Keruack off of the planet.
Thanks for listening, sorry for my errors (Dyslexia rules sadly)...Goodnight
Andrew
From: Greg Bear
Date: 06/09/2009
What a story!
From: patrick
Location:
Date: 06/09/2009
Indeed. And a long trip. I would be curious to know the continental route they took.
From: Andrew Carpenter
Location: Cauterets, France
Date: 06/11/2009
Patrick,
That I can do..although she never wrote a diary, all of her passes, dockets, visas, repair bills, maps, photos etc survive. My cousin has them, as she's been trying to write a book about it for the last 30 years (she's still stuck on paragraph 2, and has been for 20 years!).. I'll get the route and post it here.
Cheers
Andrew
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