Richard Mason (novelist 1919–1997)

Richard Mason (16 May 1919 – 13 October 1997) was a British novelist. His novels usually concerned Britons' experiences in exotic foreign locations, especially in Asia.

Born into a middle-class family in Hale, near Manchester, he was educated at The Downs Malvern, a private boarding school, from September, 1928 through 1933. There he studied under poet W. H. Auden and at the age of 14 authored a juvenile novel (criticized by Auden as "no good" and now lost). His later novels allude to school hazing, and a fictional character mentions a painful separation from his mother, incidents which may give some flavor of his experiences there. (The Downs, in Malvern, which he entered at the age of 8, was situated quite far from Hale.)

He received his secondary school education in Dorset, at Giggleswick School and Bryanston School (1933 - 1936), and published articles in the local press and a film magazine from 1933 through 1938. After a stint working for the British Council, he entered service in the RAF and served from 1939 through 1944. After learning Japanese in a crash course taken in India, he served as an interrogator of prisoners of war in India and Burma while attached to the 14th Army as an intelligence officer. Some of these experiences found fictional expression in his first, pseudonymous novel, The Body Fell on Berlin (1943), written as Richard Lakin (Lakin appears as his middle name in the German edition of The World of Suzie Wong).

His second novel, The Wind Cannot Read, appeared in 1946, followed by another pseudonymous mystery novel Angel Take Care (also written as Richard Lakin, 1947). Both of the mysteries are exceptionally literate and ingenious, and remain interesting sketches of the time and place in which they're set.

The Wind Cannot Read was written in India between February and May 1944, sometimes in temperatures over 100 degrees, after the day's duties. It was based partly on his wartime experiences learning Japanese and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1948. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1958 film version, starring Dirk Bogarde. Many of the themes of love transcending cultural boundaries, also developed in The World of Suzie Wong, make their first appearance here. The novel and film were sufficiently successful that Mason was able to devote himself entirely to writing and travel, including visits to the Caribbean and Polynesia.

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