Ive often struggled to reconcile the titles of Burmese books in English translation to their content. A lot of the time I see no connection, no matter how hard I try to make it fit and just assume that in the original Burmese it makes sense …
I chose Interesting Places of the Past in Yangon for the first of the non-fiction reviews for its every-book qualities. There is a common thread in many non-fiction books in translation from Myanmar …
One of the hopes of my book, The People Elsewhere, was to shine a light on the misconception that all languages and literature from the ethnic nationality groups in Myanmar had been suppressed by successive juntas over fifty years. The reality is much more complicated of course …
There is no shortage of books on the market that delve into the life of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Peter Pophams ‘The Lady and the Peacock’ and his more recent ‘The Lady and the Generals’, Justin Wintles ‘Perfect Hostage’, Bertil Lintners ‘Aung San Suu Kyi and Burmas Struggle for Democracy’ among them …
Maung Khine Zaw is a non-fiction writer and author of two books on Yangon. In the 1990s he contributed articles on the city to Myolaw (City) Magazine published by the Yangon City Development Committee …