Overview

Bronze, 2020 Independent Publisher Book Award Best Regional Non-Fiction: Australia / New Zealand / Pacific Rim Winner of New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards 2019 for non-regional Biography / Autobiography / Memoir Honorable Mention, Readers' Favorite Awards 2019 in the travel book category Finding Myself in Borneo is an honest and buoyant chronicle of a young Canadian man's adventures during 1968-70, while teaching secondary school as a CUSO volunteer in Sabah, Malaysia (North Borneo). Travel with Neill McKee on his unique journey through vibrant Asian cultures as he learns the craft of teaching, the Malay language and local customs, and gains many friends in his small community. He climbs the highest peak in Southeast Asia-Mount Kinabalu, has a love affair, and navigates Borneo's backwaters to make his first of many documentary films. McKee travels by freighter to Indonesia, where he discovers the scars of that country's recent genocide, a contrast to his hilarious motorcycle journeys in Sabah with his American Peace Corps buddy. They make a hallucinogenic discovery-North Borneo is, indeed, J. R. R. Tolkien's famed Middle-Earth of The Lord of the Rings! The enterprising duo establish the North Borneo Frodo Society, an organization Tolkien joins. McKee's second Sabah sojourn and other return trips offer the reader the opportunity to match the early anecdotes to what in fact happened to the land and people who touched his life, and he theirs.

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9781732945708

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Reviews

Neill McKee's work takes us on a true adventure. His keen observations of North Borneo re-imagine a time and place via a unique journey. McKee's writing stirs the imagination and simultaneously explains a place less traveled. His eye and ear for startling detail and understanding of political dimensions make this work a fascinating and eye-opening read. --Diane Thiel, Author and Professor, University of New Mexico: www.dianethiel.net I love it. It has so many qualities that the usual memoir lacks. Neill McKee is honest about himself, not in any way self-absorbed, but he shares his opinions with attractive openness. McKee is lyrical about the countryside and I felt I was with him as he enjoyed the humorous side of life and the characters in the cramped town of Kota Belud. Nothing drags with different scenes in the short chapters in this book. It is a refreshing journey around a fascinating slice of Borneo with the best of guides. --Clyde Sanger, Author and Journalist, Ottawa, Canada Finding Myself in Borneo brought back so many warm memories of our own experiences in the US Peace Corps in the late '60s and early '70s. Although we were posted to Liberia, West Africa, McKee's stories induced a lot of discussion about our generation and its ideals. McKee's insights into living in another culture are entertaining, perceptive and informative. We want to read more about his life experiences and are already looking forward to his next book. --James and Vivian Bowman, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA Neill McKee joins a rare band who dare to write about what they brought to volunteering and, realized much later in life, what they received, learned and cherish. The book takes us to the roots of his career when he was a secondary school teacher in Sabah, where he became a filmmaker and then a specialist in media and mobilization for positive social change. That McKee was able to return to Sabah a number of times after his volunteer years, offers the opportunity to match the anecdotes to what in fact happened to the people who touched his life, and he theirs. That is an opportunity and courage I envy. --Christopher Smart, Returned CUSO volunteer, Ottawa, Canada This book is a highly readable flashback to the life of a foreign volunteer teacher in Sabah during the 1960s and 1970s--a time when big changes were just starting to sweep across a land full of eager communities and unspoiled tropical forest. In the closing chapters, McKee makes bittersweet visits back to Sabah. As a filmmaker, he surveys the land by helicopter to find much of what he remembered has gone--vast stretches of forest felled by political and economic forces. Travelers will find this book a fascinating read. McKee's succinct wit offers first-time visitors to Borneo vivid historical bearings to frame their present-day experiences as they travel through this land, still full of many attractions. Malaysians and Sabahans will discover, in McKee's observations, issues to debate on rainy afternoons. --S.Y. Chin, Asia-based editor Neill McKee captures the spirit of Kota Belud, Sabah, Malaysia. As I read, I was instantly transported to the immaculate greens, the deepened shadows of mountains silhouetted against the hot, sapphire skies; the hullabaloo that constituted the heart of the vibrant Asian culture in the era he lived in North Borneo. I felt I was riding with him on his motorbike as the enthralling splendor of the place unfolded. It's an enchanting narrative and I couldn't stop until I had consumed the entire book! --Nuzhat Shahzadi, Writer, Fairfax, Virginia, USA

Author Information

Neill McKee is an award-winning creative nonfiction writer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His first travel memoir Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah won Bronze in the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Award for Best Regional Non-Fiction: Australia / New Zealand / Pacific Rim, and the New Mexico/Arizona Book Award for Biography / Autobiography / Memoir (for non-NM/AZ subject). It also won an honorable mention in the international Readers' Favorite Awards, 2019. McKee's book is about his first overseas adventures in Sabah, Malaysia (North Borneo), where he served as a Canadian CUSO volunteer teacher and program administrator during 1968-70 and 1973-74. McKee, who holds a B.A. Degree from the University of Calgary and a Masters in Communication from Florida State University, lived and worked in Asia, Africa, Russia and traveled to over 80 countries on assignments during his 45-year international career. He became an expert in communication for behavior and social change. McKee directed and produced of a number of award-winning documentary films/videos, animated films, and wrote a large number of articles, books, and manuals in the field of communication for international development. McKee is busy creating two other memoirs, at present: a humorous and poignant one on his childhood and youth in a chemically polluted small town in Canada; and another on a 15,000-mile, 400-year search for the stories of his ancestors in North America, during which he met distant cousins, historians, and interesting characters to discuss the times and conflicts through which his blood relatives lived. The journey ends at Plymouth Plantation and the Mayflower. McKee does readings/book signings and presentations with or without photos. He prefers lively interactive sessions.

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