On the Shadow Tracks: A Journey through Occupied Myanmar

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An immersive, magisterial portrait of Myanmar, told through the story of its hidden railways In 2016, while working as a journalist in Yangon, Clare Hammond discovered an obscure map that showed a web of new railways spanning the length and breadth of the country - railways not shown on any other publicly available maps. She was determined to uncover the railways' origins, purpose, and most of all, the silence that surrounded them. She would spend three months travelling on these mysterious railways, and the next five years piecing their story together. Her journey would take her from Myanmar's tropical south to the embattled mountain towns that border India and China. In dilapidated carriages, along tracks in disrepair, through contested ethnic states and former sites of forced labour, visiting temples, tea shops and festivals, Clare encountered a colourful and contradictory Myanmar through the stories of its people. Simultaneously a lush and evocative travelogue, an unsparing account of Myanmar's recent history, and an astonishing, conversation-shifting engagement with Britain's colonial legacy, On the Shadow Tracks is that rare and necessary thing- a book that finds and tells the truth.

Reviews

On the Shadow Tracks harnesses the railway lines of Myanmar's complicated past to its turbulent present, and the result is part travelogue, part history and completely absorbing. An astonishing achievementJoanna Lumley

Weaponised, politicised and built for exploitation and financial gain, railways around the world often tell the story of a nation better than its people can. Powerful and unflinching, Hammond has harnessed Myanmar's broken network to tell the extraordinary story of endurance in the face of violent struggleMonisha Rajesh, author, Around the World in 80 Trains

A journey like nothing I've ever read before. The quest at the heart of this book throws off the romance of rail travel in extraordinary reportage by a brave and brilliant journalist. Compassionate and humane, in the tradition of OrwellSophy Roberts, author, The Lost Pianos of Siberia

Courageous... The book gives a damning account of the army officers and politicians in charge during recent decades.... At times the landscape is the most eloquent witnessSpectator

Hammond [gives] voice to the people most affected by decades of brutality and mismanagement... On the Shadow Tracks transports the reader to a part of the world too often veiledObserver

A compelling and insightful book that mixes elements of travel writing and reportage Hammond fills the books pages with elegant sketches of people and places occasionally brings to mind the reportage of George Orwell Well-crafted and rich in insightsLos Angeles Review of Books

One of the most absorbing and comprehensive overviews of Myanmar's Great Railway Disaster to date, and [...] a prcis of the greater disaster of the modern Burmese nationTLS

A clear-eyed travelogue that brings modern Myanmar to life... The book is ambitious, covering the intrepid authors train journey through eight regions of Myanmar... The physical as well as intellectual feat is vast, and the conflicts that Hammond examines continue to shake the ground she travels... On the Shadow Tracks raises questions that are relevant worldwide... It reminds the reader of the danger of silence, bringing up weighty questions of memory and forgetting and what these ideas mean for securing justice. We are reminded that without making truth explicit, mass suffering can be erased from history and the national imagination, making it possible for human lives to be swept aside as nothingMyanmar Now

Hammond uses her descriptive powers on loquacious tea shop habitus, aggrieved farmers or nostalgic railway retirees, and for evoking the kindness of back-country Myanmar... On the Shadow Tracks reveals mass exploitation through painful individual memoriesMekong Review

Contains history, mystery and even some comedy Some journeys end as tracks sink under rainwater or mud, forcing Hammond to continue on foot. She braves mosquitoes on open air carriages and suspicious passengers who turn out to be police or soldiers, as well as the Gokteik viaduct, a rickety steel bridge above a deep gorge in Shan state... Hammond's book is not strictly for veteran Myanmar hands, or rail enthusiasts. In fact, her storytelling provides a friendly entree for anyone interested to learn of Myanmar's modern historyNikkei Asia

Author Bio

Clare Hammond is a British journalist. Based in London, she works for non-profit Global Witness, investigating issues relating to natural resources, conflict and corruption. In Yangon, where she lived for six years, Hammond was most recently the digital editor of Frontier, Myanmar's best-known investigative magazine, where she oversaw daily news coverage. A Google News Initiative and Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grantee, her work has won multiple awards.