Cirrus@Austlit

'A newly married couple arrive in Malaya from Britain in 1931, and start a family. Then after ten years, their happy and fulfilling life is suddenly disrupted by the invasion of the Japanese army in 1942. She escapes to Australia with the four children, and he spends the rest of the war in prison. Both of them write about their experiences, in distinctive voices, but with surprisingly similar concerns, considering the enormous differences in their circumstances.

'A deeply personal story of forced separation and reunion, If this should be farewell interweaves the journals and letters of Ernest and Mary Hodgkin, torn asunder by the fall of Singapore during the second World War. From Changi prison to suburban Australia, their lives through the war could not have been more different, yet their love and devotion never wavered.' (Publication summary)