Burmese Moons

(Hardback)

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Description

As civil war and oppressive military rule tear his country apart, a young man defends the dignity of his people in this tale of hardship, perseverance, and hope. In the jungle of Burma, a tribe of the Zomi ethnic group lives modestly and peacefully. Thazama is a young, intrepid Zomi who loves hunting and playing games with his friend Moonpi and is secretly in love with the beautiful Kim. But the Burmese revolution of 1988 and the ensuing bloodbath changes everything, making them hostages in their own country. Military forces impose themselves on the people, demanding food and rations, men and women, many of whom will never return. Thazama knows that his destiny is to fight for freedom, and, along with Moonpi, he passes his initiation into adulthood and is given a tattoo of the tiger, symbol of independence and resistance. The two young heroes leave their mountain home and head to the great city of Mandalay, but Thazama himself is on a road of no return. He is set to begin a harrowing journey through Southeast Asia from country to country, further and further from his home.

Reviews

This graphic novel served as an excellent and accessible entry point to understanding the worse of the war that developed and what it has done to many of the inhabitants and the generations to come. -Bookidote

"Considering that Burmese Moons does portray a kind of hell on Earth, I cant think of any more appropriate way of depicting it and Garcia has provided us with an artistic tour de force of immense intensity and inventiveness that I believe goes unmatched by any other work Ive seen this year." -John Seven, The Beat

Author Bio

Sophie Ansel was born in Brittany and has worked in Taiwan, the United States, Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand. In 2005 and 2006 she first went to Burma, where five years of investigation led her to collect the testimonies of hundreds of Burmese of all ethnicities and led to her first work about the subject, the film Dans l'ombre de ton sourire (2007). She has also written the testimony of Navy Soth called Les Larmes Interdites (Forbidden Tears), and the biography of Habib, a stateless young Burmese called Nous les innommables-un tabou birman. Sam Garcia was born in 1978 in Spain. After studying design, he became a graphic designer and decided to start comic strip after reading I Never Liked You, by Chester Brown. He published several stories between 2002 and 2005 in the magazine Norma Editorial and various publishers. In 2012, he drew Burmese Moons with Sophie Ansel.