The Casuarina Tree is a collection of short stories set in 1920s Malaya by W. Somerset Maugham that came out of travels he paid for by working for the British Secret Service as a spy. It was first published by the UK publishing house, Heinemann, in 1926. The Casuarina tree of the title is native to Australasia and Southeast Asia, often used to stabilise soils. In Maugham’s foreword, he says the title was a metaphor for "the English people who live in the Malay Peninsula and in Borneo because they came along after the adventurous pioneers who opened the country to Western civilisation."... He likens the pioneers to mangroves reclaiming a swamp, and the expatriates to Casuarinas, who came later and served there. He then learned that his idea was incorrect botanically but decided it would suggest the planters and administrators who for him, were in their turn the organisers and "protectors" of society. The book and the author are true to their times but express views and language that are considered politically incorrect today. The stories— Maugham wrote the introduction, "The Casuarina Tree" and postscript, himself.
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