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James Clavell
Charles Edmund de Maresque de Clavell, better known as James Clavell, was a British-American novelist and screenwriter renowned for his novels Shogun and King Rat, as well as films like The Great Escape.
James Clavell was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1921.
He grew up in a family where his father served as an officer in the British Royal Army, leading to a childhood spent in various Commonwealth locations. In 1940, Clavell enlisted in the British Royal Artillery and was sent to Malaya to fight the Japanese. He was wounded in combat and subsequently captured, spending time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Later, he was transferred to Changi Prison, near Singapore. These experiences formed the basis of his first novel, King Rat.
“Changi became my university, not a prison. Among the inmates were specialists in all walks of life, high and low. I studied and mastered everything I could, from physics to forgery, but most of all, I learned the art of survival, the most important course of all.”
Clavell spent three years researching and writing Shogun, which was published in 1975. The book tells the story of an Englishman who becomes a samurai in feudal Japan. Shogun became a massive bestseller and was soon adapted into a television miniseries in 1980, starring Richard Chamberlain. In 2024, a new series based on the novel Shogun is scheduled for release.
Clavell spent another three years researching and writing his fourth novel, Noble House, published in 1981. Set in Hong Kong in 1963, it also became a bestseller, and a miniseries was made from the book in 1988.
Clavell briefly returned to filmmaking, directing a thirty-minute adaptation of his novella, The Children’s Story. He initially planned to create a sequel to Shogun, but instead wrote a novel about the 1979 revolution in Iran, Whirlwind.
Clavell eventually returned to the Shogun sequel, completing Gai-Jin, his final novel.
Works by James Clavell
- King Rat (1962) – Set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, 1945
- Tai-Pan (1966) – Set in Hong Kong, 1841
- Shogun (1975) – Set in feudal Japan, 1600s
- Noble House (1981) – Set in Hong Kong, 1963
- Whirlwind (1986) – Set in Iran, 1979
- Gai-Jin (1993) – Set in Japan, 1862
Other Works
- The Children’s Story (1980)
- The Art of War – Translation of Sun Tzu’s famous book (1983)
- Thrump-O-Moto (1986)
- Escape (1994)
Screenplays and Filmography
- 1958: The Fly – Screenwriter
- 1959: Watusi – Screenwriter
- 1959: Five Gates to Hell – Screenwriter
- 1959: Men Into Space – TV series, writer of 2 episodes
- 1960: Walk Like a Dragon – Screenwriter
- 1961: Whiplash – TV series, writer of 1 episode
- 1963: The Great Escape – Writer, producer
- 1964: 633 Squadron – Writer
- 1965: The Satan Bug – Screenwriter
- 1965: King Rat – Screenwriter
- 1967: To Sir, with Love – Writer, producer, and director
- 1971: The Last Valley – Writer, producer, and director
- 1974: To Sir, with Love – TV movie, screenwriter
- 1980: Shogun – TV miniseries
- 1980: Shogun – TV movie, writer, producer
- 1967: The Sweet and the Bitter – Writer, producer, and director
- 1982: The Children’s Story – TV movie, writer, producer, and director
- 1986: Tai-Pan – Screenwriter
- 1988: Noble House – TV miniseries, writer, and producer, 4 episodes