This is a story of one courageous woman's fight against the vicissitudes, brutality and starvation that faced civilians incarcerated in the infamous Stanley prison, by the Japanese, in Hong Kong during World War II.

The story she tells is absolutely fascinating providing, as it does, an essential fragment of Hong Kong's social history. Written simply, without any obnoxious purple passages or journalese, this is a true story of survival, absorbing in its simplicity and details of the very essence of staying alive – growing vegetables in such stark conditions – and sane.

A book that will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers.