Is The Narrow Road to the Deep North based on a true story?

In addition to his experiences in the brutal and bloody war, the story also explores a fraught romance between Dorrigo and Amy Mulvaney (Young), who is married to his considerably older uncle.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is certainly grounded in reality, recreating the torturous conditions of the camps in lurid detail, but it would be incorrect to suggest that the story is entirely factual.

Is The Narrow Road to the Deep North based on a true story?

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is partly inspired by true events, but it remains largely a work of fiction.

The BBC and Prime Video series adapts the Man Booker Prize-winning novel by author Richard Flanagan, who was compelled to write on the subject of prisoner of war camps due to his father's real experiences during World War II.

Arch Flanagan was one of approximately 1,000 prisoners of war commanded by Sir Ernest Edward 'Weary' Dunlop, who carried out forced labour on what is now known as the Burma Railway.

Its other name is the 'Death Railway' due to the human rights abuses involved in its construction, with upwards of 100,000 people thought to have died in its creation – most of whom were south-east Asian civilians under the rule of the Japanese military.

Around 12,000 were captured Allied soldiers, like Dunlop and Flanagan, although the two of them miraculously survived the war and lived to see old age.

Author Richard Flanagan had long wanted to pen a story inspired by the experiences of his father in the barbaric prisoner of war (POW) camps, which he had heard stories about from a young age.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald following the book's publication, Flanagan recalled: "For a year I visited and called with endless questions about daily life in the camps – What came first, 'tenko' (roll call) or breakfast? What did the ulcer ward smell like? What was it like having cholera? – and a new, final form of the novel began to take shape."

That said, while Arch's experiences and testimony were crucial to the creation of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, in all of its intricate detail, Flanagan is quick to point out that the novel isn't a biography of his father.

Instead, he wished for it to "escape" the confines of Arch's life and become very much its own original story.

After visiting Thailand and the site of the Death Railway atrocities, Flanagan decided to include a romantic subplot between his main character, Dorrigo (played by Jacob Elordi), and a lost love.

The decision was partly inspired by the story of a Latvian soldier who was separated from his wife during the war, believing her to have died, only for them to be reunited by chance years later after both had created separate families.

He wrote: "Now, it was a love story and its leading character a figure utterly unlike my father – a doctor who is the POW commander in one camp and who, after the war, is celebrated as a war hero."

One element of The Narrow Road to the Deep North that is drawn from reality is the violent murder of an Australian soldier in the POW camp, which unfolds before Dorrigo's eyes in distressing scenes.

Flanagan says that this incident reflects the same terrible fate that befell Sergeant Micky Hallam, described as one of his father's "best friends", who he sombrely remembered for decades after his tragic death.

In addition to hearing his father's stories, Flanagan also travelled to Japan to meet and hear accounts from the opposing side, with all World War II survivors sharing a sense of deep regret and sorrow over the horrors of the conflict.

Remarkably, the novelist reveals, his father's health seemed almost intertwined with the progress of the novel, as Arch "lost all memory of his time in the POW camp" upon hearing of his former captors' contrition.

Some time later, he died on the very same day that Richard informed him that the novel was complete.

So, while The Narrow Road to the Deep North is not strictly a true story, with Dorrigo, Amy and their romance being purely works of fiction, the story does have a profound personal relevance to its author and roots in the real suffering of World War II prisoners.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North premieres on BBC One and iPlayer on Sunday 20th July 2025.

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