ABOUT THE BOOK

Therese Severin Petersen grew up in colonial Java. The brutal war between Japan and the Allied Forces in the Far East almost 65 years ago sent her together with her husband and their two small children three years to a Japanese prison camp: she and her children survived unlike the majority of the prisoners, among those her husband who gave in to hunger, illness and horror. This is her incredible story about losing almost everything but still keeping the will to live.

Today, 93 years old Therese Severin Petersen is alive and well and among the last of her generation, who can pass on an eye-witness account from the Second World War as it was carried out in the Japanese prison camps in South East Asia. Being the grandchild of Therese, Anne-Marie Severin Lütken grew up listening to this tale of survival, which she has now put down in words along with her colleague, the journalist Ayoe Maria Jurhagen.

Prisoner of the Empire of the Sun is not a biography, but rather a journalistic work written as fiction. The tale is based on interviews with Therese, her family and friends, their letters, diaries and drawings from the time before, during and after the war as well as on research in war archives mainly in Denmark and the Netherlands.

THE AUTHORS

Anne Marie Severine Lütken (born 1980) graduated as a journalist from University of South Denmark and works in TV.

Ayoe Maria Jurhagen (born 1984) graduated as a journalist from University of South Denmark and works at the newspaper Børsen.

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