The MUP Masterworks series celebrates distinguished Australian writers and ideas. Other writers in the series include Manning Clark, A.A. Phillips, Donald Horne, Janet McCalman and Brenda Niall.

At risk of death, prisoner of war Ray Parkin secretly kept a journal of the months in 1943-44 he spent working on the Thai-Burma Railway. His account, first published as Into the Smother, received international acclaim for its restrained but realistic depiction of POWs living, working and dying in a Japanese camp deep in the Thai jungle. It was hailed by the legendary literary critic Max Harris as 'probably the finest POW writing in English'.