Agnes Keith – Land Below The Wind

Few books illustrate the contemporary life of pre-war Sabah as vividly as Agnes Keith’s Land The Wind. Ada Pryer wrote the first narrative account of life in the fledgling state of North Borneo, published in 1893. But it was Mrs Keith, who captured the heart and the imagination of her readers about this faraway land, nestled below the big winds of the typhoon belt, in Land Below The Wind. Her warm and humorous style won her the Atlantic Monthly Non-fiction Prize, and later, much later, the eternal gratitude of Sabahans. Those who live and work in Sabah have Mrs. Keith to thank for the sobriquet, Land Below The Wind. The mariners sailing in the surrounding waters described all the lands south of the typhoon belt as the “land below the wind”. But Mrs. Keith reserved the label exclusively for Sabah in her book.