Dan Collins, chief of the Agency for International Development in western Borneo, is a man caught in conflict between two cultures. On orders to retrieve a State Department employee from the upper reaches of the Baleh River, he discovers an enthralling world cloaked by the lush veil of the jungle. Instead of bringing his colleague back, he retreats into the uncharted wilderness.

There Collins finds the longhouse of Nadai. Peopled by native Ibans, Rumah Nadai soon becomes his home, and he forges a kinship with Bawang, the tribal headman, and Chiang, a Chinese man living among the Ibans. He learns the Iban ways and how to live in union with a nature that is both life-giving and life-threatening.

Looming large in his consciousness however, are the responsibilities he has left behind. In a terrifying confrontation in the jungle night - as loggers threaten the jungle forests - Collins must choose between loyalty to the Ibans and the values of his native culture. In The King of Rumah Nadai, Clarke paints a rich portrait of one man's struggle with clashing cultures and deep inner conflict on the path to self-knowledge.