For nearly two decades Western governments and a growing activist community have been frustrated in their attempts to bring about a freer and more democratic Burma--through sanctions and tourist boycotts--only to see an apparent slide toward even harsher dictatorship. But what do we really know about Burma and its history? And what can Burma's past tell us about the present and even its future?

In "The River of Lost Footsteps," Thant Myint-U tells the story of modern Burma, in part through a telling of his own family's history, in an interwoven narrative that is by turns lyrical, dramatic, and appalling. His maternal grandfather, U Thant, rose from being the schoolmaster of a small town in the Irrawaddy Delta to become the UN secretary-general in the 1960s. And on his father's side, the author is descended from a long line of courtiers who served at Burma's Court of Ava for nearly two centuries. Through their stories and others, he portrays Burma's rise and decline in the modern world, from the time of Portuguese pirates and renegade Mughal princes through the decades of British colonialism, the devastation of World War II, and a sixty-year civil war that continues today and is the longest-running war anywhere in the world.

"The River of Lost Footsteps" is a work both personal and global, a distinctive contribution that makes Burma accessible and enthralling. Thant Myint-U, educated at Harvard and Cambridge, has served on three United Nations peacekeeping operations, in Cambodia and in the former Yugoslavia, and was more recently the head of policy planning in the UN's Department of Political Affairs. He lives in New York City.

The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma

Goku has made it to the Tenka'ichi Budôkai, the world's #1 martial arts tournament...but even the training of the martial arts master Kame-Sen'nin hasn't prepared him for this! Only seven finalists remain. Will the champion be Goku? His fellow student Kuririn? Yamcha, master of the "Fist of the Wolf Fang"? Fighting woman Ran Fuan? Giran, a rubbery monster who's part dinasaur? Namu, an Indian mystic? Or Jackie Chun, the mysterious old man who may be the toughest fighter of all? There can be only one winner in the wildest, craziest battle ever!

Dragon Ball, Vol. 4: Strongest Under the Heavens (Dragon Ball, #4)

Set in the days of the Empire, with the British ruling in Burma, Orwell's book describes corruption and imperial bigotry. Flory, a white timber merchant, befriends Dr Veraswami, a black enthusiast for the Empire, whose downfall can only be prevented by membership at an all-white club.

Burmese Days

Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize

An emotionally charged and lyrically written memoir about a remarkable odyssey from a Burmese hill tribe and a land torn by civil war to Cambridge University.

It was during a tour on a trip through Burma that John Casey, a Cambridge don, first met Pascal Khoo Thwe, who was moonlighting in a Chinese restaurant to support himself as a student at Mandalay University. Thwe was born a member of the Padaung tribe in Burma where political turmoil and poverty are ever-present realities.

Thwe left school to join the student rebels during the great insurrection of 1988, but remained in touch with Casey. He was forced to flee the country. It was his connection to Casey that enabled him to emigrate to England where he was admitted to Cambridge University. Despite his humble beginnings and the oppression he faced, Pascal Khoo Thwe brings us into a world forgotten by the West, but one that readers will not soon forget.

From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey

A fascinating political travelogue that traces the life and work of George Orwell in Southeast Asia

Over the years the American writer Emma Larkin has spent traveling in Burma, also known as Myanmar, she's come to know all too well the many ways this brutal police state can be described as "Orwellian." The life of the mind exists in a state of siege in Burma, and it long has. But Burma's connection to George Orwell is not merely metaphorical; it is much deeper and more real. Orwell's mother was born in Burma, at the height of the British raj, and Orwell was fundamentally shaped by his experiences in Burma as a young man working for the British Imperial Police. When Orwell died, the novel-in-progress on his desk was set in Burma. It is the place George Orwell's work holds in Burma today, however, that most struck Emma Larkin. She was frequently told by Burmese acquaintances that Orwell did not write one book about their country - his first novel, "Burmese Days" - but in fact he wrote three, the "trilogy" that included "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four". When Larkin quietly asked one Burmese intellectual if he knew the work of George Orwell, he stared blankly for a moment and then said, "Ah, you mean the prophet!"

In one of the most intrepid political travelogues in recent memory, Emma Larkin tells of the year she spent traveling through Burma using the life and work of George Orwell as her compass. Going from Mandalay and Rangoon to poor delta backwaters and up to the old hill-station towns in the mountains of Burma's far north, Larkin visits the places where Orwell worked and lived, and the places his books live still. She brings to vivid life a country and a people cut off from the rest of the world, and from one another, by the ruling military junta and its vast network of spies and informers. Using Orwell enables her to show, effortlessly, the weight of the colonial experience on Burma today, the ghosts of which are invisible and everywhere. More important, she finds that the path she charts leads her to the people who have found ways to somehow resist the soul-crushing effects of life in this most cruel police state. And George Orwell's moral clarity, hatred of injustice, and keen powers of observation serve as the author's compass in another sense too: they are qualities she shares and they suffuse her book - the keenest and finest reckoning with life in this police state that has yet been written.

Finding George Orwell in Burma

Since November 1995, Aung San Suu Kyi has been writing a weekly column in a Japanese newspaper in which she gives her impressions of the political, cultural and social scene in Burma today: subjects range from what the Burmese have for breakfast, through a description of her first visit after release from house arrest to a national shrine, to overt political pieces on the repression in the country. The result is 52 pieces, all illustrated by a Burmese artist, which provide an overall picture of the country today.

Letters from Burma

A beautiful and poignant story of one family during the most violent and turbulent years of world history, "Miss Burma" is a powerful novel of love and war, colonialism and ethnicity, and the ties of blood.

"Miss Burma" tells the story of modern-day Burma through the eyes of Benny and Khin, husband and wife, and their daughter Louisa. After attending school in Calcutta, Benny settles in Rangoon, then part of the British Empire, and falls in love with Khin, a woman who is part of a long-persecuted ethnic minority group, the Karen. World War II comes to Southeast Asia, and Benny and Khin must go into hiding in the eastern part of the country during the Japanese Occupation, beginning a journey that will lead them to change the country’s history. After the war, the British authorities make a deal with the Burman nationalists, led by Aung San, whose party gains control of the country. When Aung San is assassinated, his successor ignores the pleas for self-government of the Karen people and other ethnic groups, and in doing so sets off what will become the longest-running civil war in recorded history. Benny and Khin’s eldest child, Louisa, has a danger-filled, tempestuous childhood and reaches prominence as Burma’s first beauty queen, soon before the country falls to dictatorship. As Louisa navigates her new-found fame, she is forced to reckon with her family’s past, the West’s ongoing covert dealings in her country, and her own loyalty to the cause of the Karen people.

Based on the story of the author’s mother and grandparents, "Miss Burma" is a captivating portrait of how modern Burma came to be, and of the ordinary people swept up in the struggle for self-determination and freedom.

Miss Burma

In 1886 a shy, middle-aged piano tuner named Edgar Drake receives an unusual commission from the British War Office: to travel to the remote jungles of northeast Burma and there repair a rare piano belonging to an eccentric army surgeon who has proven mysteriously indispensable to the imperial design. From this irresistible beginning, The Piano Tuner" "launches its protagonist into a world of seductive loveliness and nightmarish intrigue. And as he follows Drake’s journey, Mason dazzles readers with his erudition, moves them with his vibrantly rendered characters, and enmeshes them in the unbreakable spell of his storytelling.

The Piano Tuner

Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. This book tells the story of how Americans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities.

The Depression was both a disaster and an opportunity. As David Kennedy vividly demonstrates, the economic crisis of the 1930s was far more than a simple reaction to the alleged excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before 1929, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom and bust cycles, wastefully consuming capital and inflicting untold misery on city and countryside alike.

Freedom From Fear explores how the nation agonized over its role in World War II, how it fought the war, why the United States won, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could.

Both comprehensive and colorful, this account of the most convulsive period in American history, excepting only the Civil War, reveals a period that formed the crucible in which modern America was formed.

Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945

'Burma Chronicles' presents a personal and distinctively humorous glimpse into a political hotspot, putting a popular spin on current affairs.

Burma Chronicles


  Thant Myint-U’s "Where China Meets India "is a vivid, searching, timely book about the remote region that is suddenly a geopolitical center of the world. From their very beginnings, China and India have been walled off from each other: by the towering summits of the Himalayas, by a vast and impenetrable jungle, by hostile tribes and remote inland kingdoms stretching a thousand miles from Calcutta across Burma to the upper Yangtze River. Soon this last great frontier will vanish—the forests cut down, dirt roads replaced by superhighways, insurgencies crushed—leaving China and India exposed to each other as never before. This basic shift in geography—as sudden and profound as the opening of the Suez Canal—will lead to unprecedented connections among the three billion people of Southeast Asia and the Far East. What will this change mean? Thant Myint-U is in a unique position to know. Over the past few years he has traveled extensively across this vast territory, where high-speed trains and gleaming new shopping malls are now coming within striking distance of the last far-flung rebellions and impoverished mountain communities. And he has explored the new strategic centrality of Burma, where Asia’s two rising, giant powers appear to be vying for supremacy. At once a travelogue, a work of history, and an informed look into the future, "Where China Meets India "takes us across the fast-changing Asian frontier, giving us a masterful account of the region’s long and rich history and its sudden significance for the rest of the world. 


Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia

Just married and returning to live in her new husband's native land, a young Austrian woman arrived with her Burmese husband by passenger ship in Rangoon in 1953. They were met at dockside by hundreds of well-wishers displaying colorful banners, playing music on homemade instruments, and carrying giant bouquets of flowers. She was puzzled by this unusual welcome until her embarrassed husband explained that he was something more than a recently graduated mining engineer - he was the Prince of Hsipaw, the ruler of an autonomous state in Burma's Shan mountains. And these people were his subjects!



She immersed herself in the Shan lifestyle, eagerly learning the language, the culture, and the history of the Shan hill people. The Princess of Hsipaw fell in love with this remote, exotic land and its warm and friendly people. She worked at her husband's side to bring change and modernization to their primitive country. Her efforts to improve the education and health care of the country, and her husband's commitment to improve the economic well-being of the people made them one of the most popular ruling couples in Southeast Asia. Then the violent military coup of 1962 shattered the idyllic existence of the previous ten years. Her life irrevocably changed. Inge Sargent tells a story of a life most of us can only dream about. She vividly describes the social, religious, and political events she experienced. She details the day-to-day living as a reluctant ruler and her role as her husband's equal - a role that perplexed the males in Hsipaw and created awe in the females. And then she describes the military events that threatened her life and that of her children.

Twilight over Burma is a story of a great happiness destroyed by evil, of one woman's determination and bravery against a ruthless military regime, and of the truth behind the overthrow of one of Burma's most popular local leaders.

Twilight Over Burma: My Life as a Shan Princess

Andrew Marshall has written an unforgettable adventure story, the wry account of two journeys into the untraveled heart of Burma. Part travelogue, part history, part reportage, The Trouser People recounts the story of George Scott, the eccentric British explorer, photographer, adventurer, and later Colonial Administrator of Burma, who introduced the Empire's best game (soccer!) to Burmese natives and to the forbidden Wa state of headhunters, who were similarly enthusiastic about it. The second, contrasting journey is Marshall's own, taking the same dangerous path one hundred years later in a country now devastated by colonial incompetence, war, and totalitarianism. Wonderfully observed, mordantly funny, and skillfully recounted, this is journalistic travel writing at its best.

The Trouser People: A Story of Burma in the Shadow of the Empire

The Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi

It is 1992, and the Burmese government's current war on its indigenous people runs into its fourth year. In neighboring Thailand, a small band of Buddhist monks harbors refugees from Burma inside their modest temple in the slums of Bangkok. The monks and refugees are all natives of the Burmese Mon State. All have the same residential status in Thailand: illegal. Under surveillance, and overwhelmed by the needs of their charges, the monks reach out to international aid agencies in Bangkok for help in ministering to the tortured, the wounded, the diseased, and the orphaned."Singing to the Dead" recalls a Catholic lay missioner's work alongside the Mon Buddhist monks of Bangkok. For more than two years, Victoria Armour-Hileman was a go-between for the monks, interceding with the world outside their temple walls for everything from a cornea transplant for a land mine victim to money to buy shoes for barefoot orphans. At the same time, "Singing to the Dead" details an aid worker's ongoing education: how to weave through an embassy bureaucracy, how to stave off burnout, how to pull money out of thin air at the eleventh hour, when to trust and when to be cautious, when to kowtow, when to pray.

As the centuries-old conflict between Burma and its Mon people worsens, police raids on the temple in Bangkok increase. Refugees have never been safe, but now even the monks' unofficial immunity seems tenuous. When one of the monks is threatened with repatriation to Burma and possible imprisonment and torture, Armour-Hileman begins the desperate race to secure a new home country for him. She knows that these final efforts are as selfish as they are humanitarian, for what kind of God, and what kind of universe, will she believe in if she fails?

Singing to the Dead: A Missioner's Life among Refugees from Burma

Conversations on The Art of Hearing Heartbeats: A Novel By Jan-Philipp Sendker | Conversation Starters

Orange Prize–winner Karen Connelly’s compelling memoir about her journey to Burma, where she fell in love with a leader of the Burmese rebel army. 

When Karen Connelly goes to Burma in 1996 to gather information for a series of articles, she discovers a place of unexpected beauty and generosity. She also encounters a country ruled by a brutal military dictatorship that imposes a code of censorship and terror. Carefully seeking out the regime’s critics, she witnesses mass demonstrations, attends protests, interviews detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and flees from police. When it gets too risky for her to stay, Connelly flies back to Thailand, but she cannot leave Burma behind. 
 
Connelly’s interest in the political turns more personal on the Thai-Burmese border, where she falls in love with Maung, the handsome and charismatic leader of one of Burma’s many resistance groups. After visiting Maung’s military camp in the jungle, she faces an agonizing decision: Maung wants to marry Connelly and have a family with her, but if she marries this man she also weds his world and his lifelong cause. Struggling to weigh the idealism of her convictions against the harsh realities of life on the border, Connelly transports the reader into a world as dangerous as it is enchanting.
 
In radiant prose layered with passion, regret, sensuality and wry humor, "Burmese Lessons" tells the captivating story of how one woman came to love a wounded, beautiful country and a gifted man who has given his life to the struggle for political change.

Burmese Lessons: A true love story

As the weeklong Taungbyon Festival draws near, thousands of villagers from all regions of Burma descend upon a tiny hamlet near Mandalay to pay respect to the spirits, known as "nats", which are central to Burmese tradition. At the heart of these festivities is Daisy Bond, a gay, transvestite spiritual medium in his fifties. With his sharp tongue and vivid performances, he has long been revered as one of the festival's most illustrious "natkadaws". At his side is Min Min, his young assistant and lover, who endures unyielding taunts and abuse from his fiery boss. But when a young beggar girl named Pan Nyo threatens to steal Min Min's heart, the outrageous Daisy finds himself face-to-face with his worst fears. Written in lyrical, intoxicating prose, "Smile as They Bow" is, like the works of Arundhati Roy and Ha Jin, an unexpectedly whimsical, illuminating, and above all revealing portrayal of a culture few Westerners have ever witnessed. 

 Over the past twenty years, Nu Nu Yi has become one of Burma's most acclaimed authors -- and in 2007, she became the first person living in Burma to be nominated for an international literary award. "Smile as They Bow" was censored for more than twelve years by the Burmese government. It is fitting, then, that this is her American debut.

Smile As They Bow

Zoya Phan was born in the remote jungles of Burma to the Karen tribe, which for decades has been resisting Burma’s brutal military junta. At age 13, her peaceful childhood was shattered when the Burmese army attacked. So began two terrible years of running, as Zoya was forced to join thousands of refugees hiding in the jungle. Her family scattered, her brothers went deeper into the war, and Zoya, close to death, found shelter at a Thai refugee camp, where she stayed until 2005 when she fled to the U.K. and claimed asylum. There, in a twist of fate, she became the public face of the Burmese people’s fight for freedom. This is her inspirational story.

Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West

Beautifully written and taking us into an exotic land, Karen Connelly’s debut novel "The Lizard Cage" is a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit.

Teza once electrified the people of Burma with his protest songs against the dictatorship. Arrested by the Burmese secret police in the days of mass protest, he is seven years into a twenty-year sentence in solitary confinement. Cut off from his family and contact with other prisoners, he applies his acute intelligence, Buddhist patience, and humor to find meaning in the interminable days, and searches for news in every being and object that is grudgingly allowed into his cell.

Despite his isolation, Teza has a profound influence on the people around him. His very existence challenges the brutal authority of the jailers, and his steadfast spirit inspires radical change. Even when Teza’s criminal server tries to compromise the singer for his own gain, Teza befriends him and risks falling into the trap of forbidden conversation, food, and the most dangerous contraband of all: paper and pen.

Yet, it is through Teza’s relationship with Little Brother, a twelve-year-old orphan who’s grown up inside the walls, that we ultimately come to understand the importance of hope and human connection in the midst of injustice and violence. Teza and the boy are prisoners of different orders: only one of them dreams of escape and only one of them will achieve it—their extraordinary friendship frees both of them in utterly surprising ways.

The Lizard Cage

Wendy Law-Yone opens her first novel with the phrase of a survivor, "Living things prefer to go on living." A young woman and her older half-brother are expelled from their home in Burma by a savage political coup. Sent to elusive safety in America, the motherless siblings find themselves engulfed by the indifference, hypocrisy, and cruelty of an American society unable to deal with difference. Her brother's death drives the unnamed narrator into the seclusion of a mental hospital, where memories of her childhood and the strength it ingrained in her are enough to heal her heart and return her to the outside world.


The Coffin Tree

In the past two decades, Burma/Myanmar has become a front-page topic in newspapers across the world. This former British colony has one of the most secretive, corrupt, and repressive regimes on the planet, yet it houses a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is and in and out of house arrest. It has an ancient civilization that is mostly unknown to Westerners, yet it was an important--and legendary--theater in World War II. A picturesque land with mountain jungles and monsoon plains, it is one of the world's largest producers of heroin. It has a restive Buddhist monk population that has captured the attention of the west when it faced off against the regime. And it recently experienced one of the worst natural disasters in modern times, one effect of which was to lay bare the manifold injustices and cruelties of the regime.

"Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know� "offers a concise synthesis of this forbidding yet fascinating country. David Steinberg, one of the world's eminent authorities on the region, explains the current situation in detail yet contextualizes it in a wide-ranging survey of Burmese history and culture. Authoritative and balanced, it will be standard work on Burma for the general reading public.

'What Everyone Needs to Know' is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know

Precariously positioned between China and India, Burma’s population has suffered dictatorship, natural disaster, and the dark legacies of colonial rule. But when decades of military dictatorship finally ended and internationally beloved Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi emerged from long years of house arrest, hopes soared. World leaders such as Barack Obama ushered in waves of international support. Progress seemed inevitable.


As historian, former diplomat, and presidential advisor, Thant Myint-U saw the cracks forming. In this insider’s diagnosis of a country at a breaking point, he dissects how a singularly predatory economic system, fast-rising inequality, disintegrating state institutions, the impact of new social media, the rise of China next door, climate change, and deep-seated feelings around race, religion, and national identity all came together to challenge the incipient democracy. Interracial violence soared and a horrific exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees fixed international attention. Myint-U explains how and why this happened, and details an unsettling prognosis for the future.


Burma is today a fragile stage for nearly all the world’s problems. Are democracy and an economy that genuinely serves all its people possible in Burma? In clear and urgent prose, Myint-U explores this question—a concern not just for the Burmese but for the rest of the world—warning of the possible collapse of this nation of 55 million while suggesting a fresh agenda for change.

The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century

Read Emma Larkin's posts on the Penguin Blog.

A deeply reported account of life inside Burma in the months following the disastrous Cyclone Nargis and an analysis of the brutal totalitarian regime that clings to power in the devastated nation.  

 On May 2, 2008, an enormous tropical cyclone made landfall in Burma, wreaking untold havoc and leaving an official toll of 138,300 dead and missing. In the days that followed, the sheer scale of the disaster became apparent as information began to seep out from the hard-hit delta area. But the Burmese regime, in an unfathomable decision of near-genocidal proportions, provided little relief to its suffering population and blocked international aid from entering the country. Hundreds of thousands of Burmese citizens lacked food, drinking water, and basic shelter, but the xenophobic generals who rule the country refused emergency help. 

 Emma Larkin, who has been traveling to and secretly reporting on Burma for years, managed to arrange for a tourist visa in those frenzied days and arrived hoping to help. It was impossible for anyone to gauge just how much devastation the cyclone had left in its wake; by all accounts, including the regime's, it was a catastrophe of epic proportions. In "Everything Is Broken", Emma Larkin chronicles the chaotic days and months that followed the storm, revealing the secretive politics of Burma's military dictatorship and the bizarre combination of vicious military force, religion, and mysticism that defined its unthinkable response to this horrific event. 

 The Burmese regime hid the full extent of the storm's devastation from the rest of the world, but the terrible consequences for Burma and its citizens continue to play out months after the headlines have faded from newspapers around the world. In "Everything Is Broken", Larkin-whose deep knowledge of the Burmese people has afforded her unprecedented access and a rare understanding of life under Burmese oppression-provides a singular portrait of the regime responsible for compounding the tragedy and examines the historical, religious, and superstitious setting that created Burma's tenacious and brutal dictatorship. Writing under an assumed name, Larkin delivers the heretofore untold story of a disaster that stunned the world, unveiling as she does so the motivations of the impenetrable generals who govern this troubled nation.

Everything Is Broken: A Tale of Catastrophe in Burma

George MacDonald Fraser--beloved for his series of "Flashman" historical novels--offers an action-packed memoir of his experiences in Burma during World War II. Fraser was only 19 when he arrived there in the war's final year, and he offers a first-hand glimpse at the camaraderie, danger, and satisfactions of service. A substantial Epilogue, occasioned by the 50th anniversary of VJ-Day in 1995, adds poignancy to a volume that eminent military historian John Keegan described as "one of the great personal memoirs of the Second World War."

Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II

An adventure story of real risk-taking and the heroic age of travel.


Ten years ago, at the age of 53, Shelby Tucker set out to cross Burma on foot from China to India when land access to Burma was forbidden. Tucker had a rucksack, a diary and some inaccurate maps. He recruited a 6ft 4in Swede, Mats, whom he had met on the train to Beijing.


Near the beginning of their walk through the jungle they encountered a group of naked boys bathing – they realized too late that their Chinese Army uniforms were on the banks. With typical sangfroid, Tucker leapt in to join them, shouting incomprehensible English greetings…
Before long they were in the hands of the Kachin Independence Army and managed to survive many near misses with the Burmese Army. Despite pain and constant danger, Tucker recorded each day the vivid beauty of the country, and the courtesy and hospitality of the Kachins (the most important of Burma's hidden colonies, about whom very little has been written).


Among Insurgents was Colin Thubron's Book of the Year, The Guardian's number 1 travel hardback and the Sunday Times' number 2. It recevied warm acclaim from Anthony Sattin ('packed with insights into tribal identity and the opium trade'), Robert Carver ('outstandingly well written in the insouciant Peter Fleming tradition'), Sara Wheeler ('a thrilling book') and it must surely be shortlised for the Thomas Cook Award.

Among Insurgents: Walking Through Burma

"Sometimes the hardest journey is the road home."

Na Ga was always in search of a better life. But now she sits, alone, in a hotel room in Wanting, a godforsaken town on the Chinese-Burmese border. Plucked from her wild life as a rural eel-catcher, Na Ga is then abandoned by her would-be rescuers in Rangoon. Later, as a teenager, she finds herself chasing the dream of a new life in Thailand - where further betrayals and violations await. Yet it seems that her fighting spirit will not be broken.

But for how long can Na Ga belong nowhere and with no one? In the dingy hotel in Wanting she is forced to confront her compulsion to keep running, and to ask herself why, until now, she's resisted the journey home.

Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011.

The Road to Wanting

The sequel to the international best-selling novel "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats"

  " "

 Almost ten years have passed since Julia Win came back from Burma, her father’s native country. Though she is a successful Manhattan lawyer, her private life is at a crossroads; her boyfriend recently left her, she has suffered a miscarriage, and she is, despite her wealth, unhappy with her professional life. Julia is lost and exhausted.
  
 One day, in the middle of an important business meeting, she hears a stranger’s voice in her head that causes her to leave the office without explanation. In the following days, her crisis only deepens. Not only does the female voice refuse to disappear, but it starts to ask questions Julia has been trying to avoid. Why do you live alone? To whom do you feel close? What do you want in life?
  
 Interwoven with Julia’s story is that of a Burmese woman named Nu Nu who finds her world turned upside down when Burma goes to war and calls on her two young sons to be child soldiers. This spirited sequel, like "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats", explores the most inspiring and passionate terrain: the human heart.

A Well-Tempered Heart

To a nation fed on classical music, the advent of Rahul Dev Burman with his repertoire of Western beats was a godsend. RD revolutionized Hindi film music in the 1970s, and with his emphasis on rhythm and beats, this Pied Piper of Hindi film music had young India swinging to his tunes. At the same time, this genius proved his many detractors who criticized him for corrupting popular taste wrong by composing some of the most influential raga-based songs in Hindi cinema and showing an immense comfort with all kinds of music, including Indian folk. RD: The Man, The Music looks at the phenomenon called R.D. Burman and how he changed the way Indians perceived Hindi film music. Through anecdotes and trivia that went into the making of Pancham’s music – the many innovations he introduced, like mixed rhythm patterns, piquant chords and sound mixing – and through interactions with the musicians who were part of RD’s team, the authors create a fascinating portrait of a man who, through his music, continues to thrive, even fifteen years after his death.

R. D. Burman: The Man, The Music

The Making of Modern Burma is a history of the country from the nineteenth to early twentieth century. In a sophisticated and much-needed account, the author argues that many aspects of contemporary Burmese society are the creations of the nineteenth century when Burma fought the British and tried to modernize the country. The book will be an important resource for students and policymakers as a basis for understanding contemporary politics and the challenges of the modern state, as well as for historians interested in British colonial expansion during the period.

The Making of Modern Burma

Peter Popham's major new biography of Aung San Suu Kyi draws upon previously untapped testimony and fresh revelations to tell the story of a woman whose bravery and determination have captivated people around the globe. Celebrated today as one of the world's greatest exponents of non-violent political defiance since Mahatma Gandhi, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize only four years after her first experience of politics.





In April 1988, Suu Kyi returned from Britain to Burma to nurse her sick mother but, within six months, found herself the unchallenged leader of the largest popular revolt in her country's history. When the party she co-founded won a landslide victory in Burma's first free elections for thirty years, she was already under house arrest and barred from taking office by the military junta.





Since then, 'The Lady' has set about transforming her country ethically as well as politically, displaying dazzling courage in the process. Under house arrest for 15 of the previous 20 years, she has come close to being killed by her political enemies and her commitment to peaceful revolution has come at extreme personal cost.





In November 2010, after fraudulent elections in which she played no part, Suu Kyi was again freed. She was greeted by ecstatic crowds but only time will tell what role this remarkable woman will have in the future of her country.

The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma

The collection of stories and sketches giving the readers entertainment, pleasure, glimpses of the author's life, as well as information on Myanmar(Burmese) Culture which she is so proud of.

13 Carat Diamond And Other Stories

This is the second part of John Masters' autobiography: how he fought with his Gurkha regiment during World War II until his promotion to command one of the Chindit columns behind enemy lines in Burma. Written by a bestselling novelist at the height of his powers, it is an exceptionally moving story that culminates in him having to personally shoot a number of wounded British soldiers who cannot be evacuated before their position is overrun by the Japanese. It is an uncomfortable reminder that Churchill's obsession with 'special forces' squandered thousands of Allied lives in operations that owed more to public relations than strategic calculation. This military and moral odyssey is one of the greatest of World War II frontline memoirs.

The Road Past Mandalay: A Personal Narrative

For more than 50 years, Burma has been ruled by a succession of military regimes which rank among the most oppressive dictatorships in the world. Accused of crimes against humanity, they have brutally mistreated their people. Yet in the last couple of years, and in spite of sham elections, the pace of change has been breathtaking. Much is now hoped for. However, Burma is one of the most ethnically diverse nations in SE Asia: there are roughly seven major ethnic groups living along its borders. They have a long history of conflict with the government and have been cruelly treated by the current regime. Their future affects the country as a whole, as Benedict Rogers explains. Drawing heavily on his many fact-finding visits both inside Burma and along its frontiers, he gives a unique appraisal of the current ethnic situation and its implications for the nation as a whole. Wide-ranging, expertly researched, and full of brand new accounts of the courage and determination of the Burmese people, Burma: a nation at the crossroads explains the country's conflicted history, as well as its contemporary struggle for justice. Burma stands poised for freedom, or for further repression. No one can be sure. This fascinating and accessible book describes what is really happening inside this beautiful, secretive, and potentially prosperous country.

Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads


  From the author of the internationally bestselling 
  
    "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats"
  
   series, comes this charming collection of folktales that offers a window into Burma's fascinating history and culture.


Since 1995 Jan-Philipp Sendker has visited Myanmar (Burma) dozens of times, and while doing research for his novels "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats "and "A Well-Tempered Heart", he encountered numerous folktales and fables. These moving stories speak to the rich mythology of the diverse peoples of Burma, the spirituality of humankind, and the profound social impact of Buddhist thought. Some are so strange he couldn't classify them or identify a familiar moral, while others reminded him of the fairy tales of his childhood, except that here monkeys, tigers, elephants, and crocodiles inhabited the fantastic lands instead of hedgehogs, donkeys, or geese. Their morals resemble those of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen, illustrating how all cultures draw on a universal wisdom to create their myths.

The Long Path to Wisdom's evocative stories run the gamut of human emotions, from the familiar to the shocking, and are sure to delight fans of "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats" as well as those newly discovering the magic of Sendker's incandescent writing.

The Long Path to Wisdom: Tales from Burma

At the time of Burma’s military coup in 1962, Wendy Law-Yone was fifteen. The daughter of Ed Law-Yone, daredevil proprietor of "The Nation" newspaper, she’d grown up amidst the perils and promises of a newly independent Burma. But on the eve of her studies abroad, her father was arrested, his newspaper shut down, and Wendy was herself briefly imprisoned before managing to escape from the country.





Ed would spend five years in jail as a political prisoner. Yet no sooner was he released and allowed to leave the country than he set about forming a government-in-exile in Thailand where he tried, unsuccessfully, to foment a revolution. Even after emigrating to America with his wife and children, he never gave up hope for a new democratic government in Burma. He died disappointed – but not before placing in his daughter’s hands an extraordinary bequest.





Ed had asked Wendy for help in editing his papers, but year after year she avoided the daunting task. When at last, decades on, she found the confidence to take up her father’s neglected manuscript, she discovered an amazing saga. Here was the testimony of a fiery, eccentric, ambitious, humorous, and above all "determined" patriot whose career had spanned Burma under colonial rule, under Japanese occupation, through the turbulence of the post-years, and into the catastrophe of a military dictatorship.





The result of this discovery is "Golden Parasol": a unique portrait of Burma, a nation whose vicissitudes continue to intrigue the world. It is also a powerfully evocative memoir: a daughter’s journey of reconciliation that turns shadow into light, illuminating corners long forgotten, or long concealed, in the twin histories of her country and kin.

Golden Parasol: A Daughter’s Memoir of Burma

In 1879, as the king of Burma lay dying, one of his queens schemed for his forty-first son, Thibaw, to supersede his half brothers to the throne. For seven years, King Thibaw and Queen Supayalat ruled from the resplendent, intrigue-infused Golden Palace in Mandalay, where they were treated as demi-gods. After a war against Britain in 1885, their kingdom was lost, and the family exiled to the secluded town of Ratnagiri in British-occupied India. Here they lived, closely guarded, for over thirty-one years. The king's four daughters received almost no education, and their social interaction was restricted mainly to their staff. As the princesses grew, so did their hopes and frustrations. Two of them fell in love with 'highly inappropriate' men. In 1916, the heartbroken king died. Queen Supayalat and her daughters were permitted to return to Rangoon in 1919.In Burma, the old queen regained some of her feisty spirit as visitors came by daily to pay their respects. All the princesses, however, had to make numerous adjustments in a world they had no knowledge of. The impact of the deposition and exile echoed forever in each of their lives, as it did in the lives of their children.Written after years of meticulous research, and richly supplemented with photographs and illustrations, The King in Exile is an engrossing human-interest story of this forgotten but fascinating family.About the AuthorSudha Shah was schooled in Mumbai and thereafter got her degree in economics from Smith College, USA. Married and settled in Mumbai, she has one son. She has spent the last seven years researching and writing this book.

The King in Exile The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma

From the end of 1941 to 1945 a pivotal but often overlooked conflict was being fought in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War 2 - the Burma Campaign.

In 1941 the Allies fought in a disastrous retreat across Burma against the Japanese - an enemy more prepared, better organised and more powerful than anyone had imagined. Yet in 1944, following key battles at Kohima and Imphal, and daring operations behind enemy lines by the Chindits, the Commonwealth army were back, retaking lost ground one bloody battle at a time.

Fighting in dense jungle and open paddy field, this brutal campaign was the longest fought by the British Commonwealth in the Second World War. But the troops taking part were a forgotten army, and the story of their remarkable feats and their courage remains largely untold to this day.

The Fourteenth Army in Burma became one of the largest and most diverse armies of the Second World War. British, West African, Ghurkha and Indian regiments fought alongside one another and became comrades. In "Forgotten Voices of Burma "- a remarkable new oral history taken from Imperial War Museum's Sound Archive - soldiers from both sides tell their stories of this epic conflict.

Forgotten Voices of Burma: The Second World War's Forgotten Conflict

IACP Award Winner

 Naomi Duguid’s heralded cookbooks have always transcended the category to become “something larger and more important” ("Los Angeles Times"). Each in its own way is “a breakthrough book . . . a major contribution” ("The New York Times"). And as Burma opens up after a half century of seclusion, who better than Duguid—the esteemed author of "Hot Sour Salty Sweet"—to introduce the country and its food and flavors to the West.

Located at the crossroads between China, India, and the nations of Southeast Asia, Burma has long been a land that absorbed outside influences into its everyday life, from the Buddhist religion to foodstuffs like the potato. In the process, the people of the country now known as Myanmar have developed a rich, complex cuisine that mekes inventive use of easily available ingredients to create exciting flavor combinations.

Salads are one of the best entry points into the glories of this cuisine, with sparkling flavors—crispy fried shallots, a squeeze of fresh lime juice, a dash of garlic oil, a pinch of turmeric, some crunchy roast peanuts—balanced with a light hand. The salad tradition is flexible; Burmese cooks transform all kinds of foods into salads, from chicken and roasted eggplant to spinach and tomato. And the enticing Tea-Leaf Salad is a signature dish in central Burma and in the eastern hills that are home to the Shan people.

"Mohinga", a delicious blend of rice noodles and fish broth, adds up to comfort food at its best. Wherever you go in Burma, you get a slightly different version because, as Duguid explains, each region layers its own touches into the dish.

Tasty sauces, chutneys, and relishes—essential elements of Burmese cuisine—will become mainstays in your kitchen, as will a chicken roasted with potatoes, turmeric, and lemongrass; a seafood noodle stir-fry with shrimp and mussels; Shan "khaut swei", an astonishing noodle dish made with pea tendrils and pork; a hearty chicken-rice soup seasoned with ginger and soy sauce; and a breathtakingly simple dessert composed of just  sticky rice, coconut, and palm sugar.

Interspersed throughout the 125 recipes are intriguing tales from the author’s many trips to this fascinating but little-known land. One such captivating essay shows how Burmese women adorn themselves with "thanaka, "a white paste used to protect and decorate the skin. Buddhism is a central fact of Burmese life: we meet barefoot monks on their morning quest for alms, as well as nuns with shaved heads; and Duguid takes us on tours of Shwedagon, the amazingly grand temple complex on a hill in Rangoon, the former capital. She takes boats up Burma’s huge rivers, highways to places inaccessible by road; spends time in village markets and home kitchens; and takes us to the farthest reaches of the country, along the way introducing us to the fascinating people she encounters on her travels.

The best way to learn about an unfamiliar culture is through its food, and in "Burma: Rivers of Flavor"," "readers" "will be transfixed by the splendors of an ancient and wonderful country, untouched by the outside world for generations, whose simple recipes delight and satisfy and whose people are among the most gracious on earth.

Burma: Rivers of Flavor

For decades Myanmar has been portrayed as a case of good citizen versus bad regime – men in jackboots maintaining a suffocating rule over a majority Buddhist population beholden to the ideals of non-violence and tolerance. But in recent years this narrative has been upended.

In June 2012, violence between Buddhists and Muslims erupted in western Myanmar, pointing to a growing divide between religious communities that before had received little attention from the outside world. Attacks on Muslims soon spread across the country, leaving hundreds dead, entire neighbourhoods turned to rubble, and tens of thousands of Muslims confined to internment camps. This violence, breaking out amid the passage to democracy, was spurred on by monks, pro-democracy activists, and even politicians.

In this gripping and deeply reported account, Francis Wade explores how the manipulation of identities by an anxious ruling elite has laid the foundations for mass violence, and how, in Myanmar’s case, some of the most respected and articulate voices for democracy have turned on the Muslim population at a time when the majority of citizens are beginning to experience freedoms unseen for half a century.

Myanmar

The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma

Thant Myint-U

Dragon Ball, Vol. 4: Strongest Under the Heavens (Dragon Ball, #4)

Akira Toriyama

Burmese Days

George Orwell

From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey

Pascal Khoo Thwe

Finding George Orwell in Burma

Emma Larkin

Letters from Burma

Aung San Suu Kyi

Miss Burma

Charmaine Craig

The Piano Tuner

Daniel Mason

Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945

David M. Kennedy

Burma Chronicles

Guy Delisle

Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia

Thant Myint-U

Twilight Over Burma: My Life as a Shan Princess

Inge Sargent

The Trouser People: A Story of Burma in the Shadow of the Empire

Andrew Marshall

The Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi

Justin Wintle

Singing to the Dead: A Missioner's Life among Refugees from Burma

Victoria Armour-Hileman

Conversations on The Art of Hearing Heartbeats: A Novel By Jan-Philipp Sendker | Conversation Starters

Daily Books

Burmese Lessons: A true love story

Karen Connelly

Smile As They Bow

နုနုရည်အင်းဝ

Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West

Zoya Phan

The Lizard Cage

Karen Connelly

The Coffin Tree

Wendy Law-Yone

Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know

David I. Steinberg

The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century

Thant Myint-U

Everything Is Broken: A Tale of Catastrophe in Burma

Emma Larkin

Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II

George MacDonald Fraser

Among Insurgents: Walking Through Burma

Shelby Tucker

The Road to Wanting

Wendy Law-Yone

A Well-Tempered Heart

Jan-Philipp Sendker

R. D. Burman: The Man, The Music

Anirudha Bhattacharjee

The Making of Modern Burma

Thant Myint-U

The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma

Peter Popham

13 Carat Diamond And Other Stories

Khin Myo Chit

The Road Past Mandalay: A Personal Narrative

John Masters

Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads

Benedict Rogers

The Long Path to Wisdom: Tales from Burma

Jan-Philipp Sendker

Golden Parasol: A Daughter’s Memoir of Burma

Wendy Law-Yone

The King in Exile The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma

Sudha Shah

Forgotten Voices of Burma: The Second World War's Forgotten Conflict

Julian Thompson

Burma: Rivers of Flavor

Naomi Duguid

Myanmar's Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim 'Other'