Secret Histories: A Journey Through Burma Today in the Company of George Orwell

(Paperback, Airside/Export ed)

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Description

Burma, where George Orwell worked as a an officer in the Imperial police force, is currently ruled by one of the oldest and most brutal military dictatorships in the world. Emma Larkin presents a side to the country that the regime does not want revealed: a hidden world that can be found only in whispered conversations, covered books and the potent rumours wafting like vapours through the country's teashops. Starting in the former royal city of Mandalay, she travelled through the moody delta regions on the edge of the Bay of Bengal, to the mildewed splendour of the old port town Moulmein, and ending her journey in the mountains of the far north, in the forgotten town Orwell used as the setting for Burmese Days. Visiting the places where Orwell lived and meeting the people who live there today, Emma Larkin gives a vivid and moving portrait of a people for whom reading is resistence.

Reviews

Engaging ... [a] superb account of life in Burma's exotic tragi-comedy - Observer

What shines out is the resilient, subversive humour of the people whom she meets - Financial Times

[A] sympathetically zealous account of investigative travel ... Larkin traces the Orwellian parallels with admirable assiduity and nicely controlled indignation - Sunday Telegraph

Emma Larkin knows her history - Independent

The only Western writer who speaks proper Burmese, knows Burma... well, and has been able to record their feelings. - Times Literary Supplement

An elegant travelogue through Burma, using Orwell's sojourn and experiences there as a template - Spectator

Never less than fascinating. - Sunday Times

An evocative account of a tropical paradise ruled by a despotic regime. - The Times

Author Bio

Emma Larkin was born and brought up in Asia. She studied the Burmese language at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London while taking her masters in Asian History. She has been visiting Burma for almost ten years. Secret Histories is her first book.