RETURN TO THE RIVER KWAI (XV)

Boulle died in 1994 and thus cannot speak for himself..In fairness to him, it must be said that his book was written as a novel , a work of fiction .It is not a historical record ,and we cannot apply the same criteria of factual accuracy.to it. Boulle was a prisoner of the Vichy French ,but he never worked on the railway and his knowledge of it was gleaned from talking to survivors.John Stewart says that it is his book and the film that have ensured that this whole dreadful period is known about , all over the world . It could so easily have slipped into obscurity. To the eternal credit of Boulle and Lean , people know about this place and what took place here.

This is why thousands visit Kanchana Buri every year.