ABSTRACT
Neither my collaborator nor I was ever in Rangoon. I’m somewhat acquainted with other port cities in the tropics. Since the action was to take place in the tropics (it would indeed have been difficult to put that whole group in Zakopane or Rabka, or even in Warsaw), and it had always been my dream to visit Rangoon, we decided jointly to transfer the action to that city. The names of the streets are fantastic – but that doesn’t matter. I don’t think anyone will be offended. As for the disease, “tropical madness,” opinions are divided. Some consider it pure fiction, a sickness invented by colonial European sadists to justify the crimes they commit against colored people – or even against the representatives of the “superior” white race. Others believe in the reality of this form of insanity, putting it on a par with paranoia or dementia praecox. On the basis of personal experience we lean toward the latter view. “Tropical madness” is actually a serious nervous disorder occurring in the tropics, as the result of the terrific temperature (of which no Ukrainian heat wave can give the faintest idea) and also as the result of spicy foods, alcohol, and the constant sight of naked black bodies.
