The Spectator, July 7th, 2007
SYLVIA , QUEEN OF HEADHUNTERS by Philip Eade Weidenfeld, £20, pp. 408, ISBN 9780297847885 £16 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655
On stage at Wyndham's Theatre just now, the curtain for Somerset Maugham's The Letter is a map of South-east Asia, circa 1920.
In the middle lies Sarawak, a slab of northern Borneo about the size of England. This is appropriate because Sarawak, which he visited frequently, was the mise-en-scène for much of Maugham's work. Less appropriate is the fact that, along with Ceylon, Burma and Malaya, Sarawak is picked out in red.
But Sarawak wasn't a colony or a Briti...
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