Sole Survivor: A Novel
About this audiobook
On November 23, 1942, German U-Boats torpedoed the British ship Benlomond. It sank in the Atlantic in two minutes. The sole survivor was a second steward named Poon Lim who, with no knowledge of the sea, managed to stay alive for 133 days on a small wooden raft.
Based on three years of interviews, Sole Survivor reconstructs Poon’s remarkable ordeal. We learn of a ship’s crew that saw him but refused to pick him up; his ingenious ways of trapping water and catching fish (later used in US Navy training films); and his arrival at land, only to find it an impenetrable jungle. When he was finally rescued at the mouth of the Amazon River, Poon was hailed as the “World’s Champion Survivor.” He still holds the Guinness World Record for survival at sea. His story is an amazing tale of a young man’s fortitude in the face of overwhelming odds.
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About the author
Ruthanne Lum McCunn was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown and grew up in Hong Kong. She has published seven books on the experiences of Chinese people in America, including Thousand Pieces of Gold. She currently resides in San Francisco.
Johanna Ward (a.k.a. Kate Reading) is an Audie Award–winning narrator and has received numerous Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine. She is also a theater actor in the Washington, DC, area and has been a member of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company since 1987. Her work onstage has been recognized by the Helen Hayes Awards Society, among others. She and her husband live in Hyattsville, Maryland, with their two children.
