Brando pirate adventure to be published
A pirate adventure story co-written by the late Marlon Brando is to be published this week, more than a year after his death.
Fan Tan tells the story of an overweight pirate who saves the life of a Chinese prisoner while serving time in a Hong Kong prison in the 1920s.
On his release he is seduced by the prisoner’s employer, Madame Lai Choi San, a notorious gangster who persuades him to join her in a daring raid of a British ship.
Brando is said to have spent years writing the book alongside Scottish film maker Donald Cammell in the 1970s.
He first suggested it as a film idea in 1978 and the pair locked themselves away to work on it on Brando’s private island, Tetiaroa.
Brando improvised scenes while Cammell wrote,according to reports. But Brando refused to take it to a studio and they eventually obtained a book advance of $100,000 in 1982.
Brando dropped the project in 1986, 10 years before Cammell killed himself. Brando himself died last July, aged 80.
Fan Tan, the name of a Chinese game of chance, has now been edited by film historian David Thomson, who wrote a final chapter.
Publishers Weekly described the novel as a “rollicking high-seas saga” that will have enthralled readers “swinging from the rigging.”
It is published by William Heinemann on Thursday.
