White Butterflies

After the Japanese invasion of Burma in late 1941, 11-year-old Colin McPhedran fled his homeland on foot, crossing the rugged Patkoi Mountain Ranges on foot to reach safety in India. Colin, along with his mother, elder brother and sister and thousands of others, many of whom died, battled monsoon rains, hunger, disease and exhaustion during the 500-kilometre journey.

McPhedran’s autobiography recalls his childhood as part of a large Anglo-Burmese family in colonial Burma, and provides a dramatic account of his harrowing trek to freedom. He eventually settled in Australia, where his memoir was first published. This edition, issued in Southeast Asia for the first time, includes a new afterword that supplies details left out of the story as originally published.

“It [is] important that true stories of the refugee experience be told. Prejudice tends to crumble when people find that the debate is really about ordinary humans who have suffered terribly, survived, and seek a chance to build new lives. White Butterflies is such a story... an astonishing record of starvation, endurance and loss…” - Peter Cole-Adams