Keith, Agnes Newton, 1901-1982

Agnes Jones Goodwillie Newton Keith (1901-1982) was an American author, known for her autobiographical accounts of her family's experiences in Borneo, the Philippines, and Libya. Keith was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to an American mother and a British father. The family moved to California early in Keith's childhood. Keith graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1924, and worked for the San Francisco Examiner. Her career as a journalist came to an abrupt end in 1925, when a man convinced that the newspaper was persecuting him through Krazy Kat cartoons attacked her outside the Examiner offices. Keith suffered memory and vision loss as a result of this assault, but eventually recovered. In 1934 Keith married Henry G. (Harry) Keith, an Englishman, who was a family friend and who had studied forestry at Berkeley. Keith followed her new husband to his current posting as Conservator of Forests and Director of Agriculture in North Borneo, where she became deeply interested in the region and its people. Keith's first book, Land Below the Wind (1939), describes her early Borneo experiences.

On leave in Canada when war was declared in 1939, the Keiths returned to Borneo soon after, where Agnes Keith gave birth to her second child, George, in 1940. (A daughter, Jean, remained in Canada.) The Japanese invaded Sandakan in 1942, and the Keiths, along with other Allied nationals in the area, were placed under house arrest. A few months later, Keith and George were sent to a prison camp on Berhala Island, with Harry Keith imprisoned nearby. In 1943, Keith and her son were transferred to a prison camp at Kuching, under the command of Colonel Suga, with Harry later transferred to an adjoining camp. During her imprisonment, Keith kept a secret account of her experiences on scraps of paper hidden in her son's toys. This diary became Keith's second book, Three Came Home, written after her family's liberation in 1945 and published in 1947. The book was adapted into a film, with Claudette Colbert as Keith, in 1950.

After a recuperation period in Canada, Harry Keith returned to Borneo in 1946, with Keith and George following him in 1947. Keith wrote her third book, White Man Returns (1951), about the post-war reconstruction of Borneo. In 1952, Harry Keith was posted to the Philippines with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, and the Keiths moved to Manila. Keith recorded these experiences in Bare Feet in the Palace (1955). In 1955, the Keiths moved to Libya, where Harry Keith was appointed as Forestry Advisor and FAO representative. There Keith wrote Children of Allah (1966).

In 1964, Harry Keith retired and the Keiths returned to Canada, where they lived in Oak Bay, British Columbia. During this time Keith wrote her only novel, published as Beloved Exiles in 1972. In 1973 Keith traveled to Japan to research her final book, Before the Blossoms Fall (1975), an account of contemporary Japanese life and culture. Keith died in Oak Bay in 1982.

From the guide to the Agnes Newton Keith papers, 1913-1985, undated, 1939-1975, (The Bancroft Library.)