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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.

Russell Braddon
Born	Russell Reading Braddon (1921-01-25)25 January 1921 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Died	20 March 1995(1995-03-20) (aged 74) Urunga, New South Wales, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Occupation	Novelist

Braddon was born in Sydney, 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.[1][2] During this time he met Ronald Searle, whose Changi sketches illustrate The Naked Island.[3]

After the war, he went on to study law at University of Sydney. Nevertheless, he failed to obtain a law degree (he maintained that he had lost interest in the subject) and he abandoned undergraduate life in 1948.[4]

In 1949, Braddon moved to England after suffering a mental breakdown and followed by a suicide attempt. Doctors attributed this breakdown to his POW experiences, and urged him to take a year to recuperate. 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. In addition, he was a frequent broadcaster on British radio and television.[5] He died in 1995 at his home in Urunga, New South Wales, having returned to Australia two years before.[6]

Proud Australian Boy: A Biography of Russell Braddon by Nigel Starck was published in Australia in 2011.

Works

Novels

• Those in Peril (1954)
• Out of the Storm (1956)
• Gabriel Comes to 24 (1958)
• The Proud American Boy (1960)
• The Year of the Angry Rabbit (1964)
• Committal Chamber (1966)
• The Inseparables (1968)
• When the Enemy Is Tired (1968)
• Will You Walk a Little Faster? (1969)
• Prelude and Fugue for Lovers (1971)
• Progress of Private Lilyworth (1971)
• End Play (1972)
• The Thirteenth Trick (1973)
• The Finalists (1977)
• The Predator (1980)
• Funnelweb (1990)

Non-fiction

• The Piddingtons (1950)
• The Naked Island (1952)
• Cheshire V.C: A Study of War and Peace (1954)
• Woman in Arms: The Story of Nancy Wake (1956)
• Nancy Wake: The Story of a Very Brave Woman (1956)
• End of a Hate (1958)
• Joan Sutherland (1962)
• Roy Thomson of Fleet Street (Collins, 1965)
• The Siege (1969)
• Suez: The Splitting of a Nation (1973)
• Hundred Days of Darien (1974)
• All the Queen's Men (1977)
• Japan Against the World (1983)
• The Other Hundred Years War (1983)
• Australia Fair? (1984)
• Thomas Baines and the North Australian Expedition (1987)
• Prisoners of War with Hugh Clarke and Colin Burgess (1988)

Broadcasts

• BBC The Piddingtons 1950: The Tower of London Broadcast: http://www.thepiddingtons.com/broadcasts.html

References

External links

• Portrait of Russell Braddon by Paul Fitzgerald

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