James Clavell

Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell, known as James Clavell, was a British and American writer, filmmaker and British Army officer during the Second World War. He is best known for his Asian Saga novels, a number of which have had television and film adaptations. He was born in 1921 and died in 1994, and his novel Shogun is the best known of the series. He wrote screenplays for films such as The Fly and The Great Escape and directed the 1967 film To Sir, with Love. During the war he was a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese at Changi Prison, an experience that formed the basis of his semi-autobiographical novel King Rat.