A few books about Myanmar/ Burma
On twitter this week I read plea after plea from Myanmar: the troops are killing us in the street and burning our homes, please help us.
What can I do? I’m an information sharer by nature and by training so that’s what I can offer.
A little personal history and a lament (skip down to books if you want):
In 1980 my father took a job in central Burma. I was in college, but when I asked my advisor for support for a semester living “at home” in Burma, I was told that I was deluded—no such thing was possible. But it was. In 1978, the government of Burma requested assistance from the US Agency for International Development. My father had a long career in forest products and took an assignment as consultant at the Forest Research Institute in Yezin. My father was there until 1983 and I spent a total of 6 months in Yezin and Yangon and traveled many other places.
In late 1987 the Burmese kyat was massively devalued and protests followed (8-8-88.) I was shocked when the army fired on its’ parents. Because that’s what happened. Not only students but older people who had lost their life savings marched in the streets and the young soldiers shot them.
In 2008 Cyclone Nargis struck an unprepared Myanmar. Because I felt as if nobody I interacted with even knew where Burma was, I did a long series of paintings based on water and figures and words.
Then, so much more pain and suffering and disappointment. What useful thing can I say about the Rohingya people? That they have lived up and down that coastline for centuries? Anybody looking at a map can see that. About the disillusion with Daw Aung San Su Kyi? She is person not a saint, and the military has ruled directly or indirectly since 1958.
So here’s a short list of things to read. What do others recommend? This list is formed by a western perspective. I’ve left out newer voices from a more open Myanmar because I do not know them. Yet.
The Non-fiction
https://www.irrawaddy.com/
The Irrawaddy is a newspaper founded in 1993 by Burmese exiles in Thailand. It has serious daily coverage by experienced journalists.
I have read many older histories and social studies, but I am seriously out of date. This is the first book in my new to-read list: The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century. by Thant Myint-U. 2019.
Thant Myint-U has also written
Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia. 2018.
The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma. 2008.
The Making of Modern Burma. 2001
and many articles.
The Fiction
The Glass Palace Chronicles of the Kings of Burma.1923.
fulltext link:
https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.9481/page/n5/mode/2up
This is part history, part legend, part primary document. The link is to the only English translation that I know.
Burmese Days
by George Orwell
1934
It’s George Orwell. Just read it. It’s a really good book.
Glass Palace
by Amitav Ghosh
2000
This a long book full of history and family saga. It begins in the royal city of Mandalay in1885 and immediately plunges the reader into the teak industry, palace and monastic politics, and the participation of Muslim peoples within the Buddhist culture. Then this world is abruptly shocked and disrupted by annexation by the British Empire. The cast of characters grows and extends over the rest of the 19th century and much of the 20th to several related families in Burma, Malaya and India
I’ve always been at a loss to describe to others the tragedy of how this rich land was reduced to such poverty. I knew much of the general history, but Ghosh fleshes it out and adds many different perspectives and dimensions to my understanding. Although it becomes somewhat strained and contrived at the end, I cannot recommend it enough.
The Piano Tuner
by Daniel Mason
2002
The premise is simple, if odd: Edgar Drake tuner is sent by the British Army to tune a rare piano owned by an army surgeon stationed in the Shan States of eastern Burma. What exactly happens after that is a little confusing—both to Drake and to the reader.
The language, structure, and images in this novel are very dream-like. The narrative often shifts in time, juxtaposing memories and characters. One of the most memorable scenes of the book for me is set in the grounds of the great golden stupa, the Shwedagon. A young women completely coated in turmeric appears before the protagonist Drake. As I remember it, after she is gone, he wonders if the golden girl was real. I read this scene, as I read much of this book, as a metaphor for colonialism.
By all means, avoid this book if you are looking for an easy racy plot! However, if you are interested in a fictional study of some cultural players in a centuries-long, racy plot, welcome to the Great Game. This book echoes for me a lot of Kipling’s work, but with a haunting post-colonial interpretation.
Again, what have you read? What authors, voices can you recommend?