How to bookmark " Myanmar Book News 6"
You have arrived in Planet Myanmar. Would you prefer Planet Burma?
If so, please click HERE.

Planet Myanmar - Myanmar Book News 6
Book News
The latest novel by this well-known Britain-Burma Society member.

It is the poignant story of Na Ga - whom we first meet returning, via China, to the homeland of her Burmese minority people, after being rejected by her American boyfriend in Thailand. This is a girl whose fate has always been in the hands of others - from well-meaning Americans to Chinese middlemen to Bangkok pimps. And what is to become of her? Return holds no promise, and the future no future.

Index
April 2010
The Road to Wanting
by Wendy Law-yone
Published by Chatto & Windus
208pp.

Paper back - ISBN: 0701184087

Amazon Price: £7.74

NB: a REVIEW by Derek Brooke-Wavell

2010
Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know
by David I. Steinberg
£9.99 paper back - 256 pages
from Oxford University Press
ISBN-13: 978-0195390681
Index

This succinct analysis of a complex country of many contradictions is arranged in 8 Sections (covering crises, pre-colonial residues, legacy of colonial period, independence and civilian government, the military coup and socialist period, the SLORC/SPDC era). Steinberg's guide to the present situation is presented as a response to over sixty question headings, eg: How do the Myanmar people today view the colonial era? How did the Chinese Nationalist incursion affect Myanmar? What were the effects of the 1947 constitution? What were the May 1990 elections about? What is the role of Buddhism in Myanmar today and what is its relation to political legitimacy? NB: there is a review by Bo Bo.

This is the author's tribute to her parents. Set between 1885 and 1989 it tells the story of Charles and Marjory Garrad. He was a scholar; both suffered greatly, but found happiness in each other - and, eventually, in the strange beauty and wonderful people of Myanmar, where he accepted the challenge of translating the entire Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew directly into Myanmar.
NB - Review by Joanna Smith.
Index
2009
Under Running Laughter -
Burma - the Hidden Heart
by Liz Anderson
Published (May 2009) by Matador
Paper back - 292 pp.
£12.99
ISBN: 1848760671
2009
Burmese Painting: A Linear and Lateral History
by Andrew Ranard
hard cover - 378 pages
A4 size; 175 painters and 300 colour plates.
£59.00 from Amazon - or available to Britain-Myanmar Society members at the discounted price of only £44.00 + £3 p&p, from Nick Esson of Combined Academic Publishers, 15A Lewin's Yard, East Street, Chesham HP5 1HQ, Tel (0)1494 581 601

ISBN: 974951176X
NB: a REVIEW by Wendy Law-Yone

Index

This claims to be the first comprehensive history of Myanmar painting from the Pagan period to the present. Not just pictures, but analysis of the art, the psychology and the history that gave rise to it, The author (a Society member) says Myanmar is unique for its amazing juxtaposition of painting styles from different periods of evolution, like the fauna of the Galapagos Islands
Much has changed in Myanmar since this weighty text book was first published in 1987. The latest version is totally revised, updated and expanded, and has new chapters covering the last 20 years of Myanmar history.
Prof Taylor looks at the current regime through a continuity stretching back to pre-colonial kings; he discusses how forces have contended and how the military government has handled them.
Index
Feb 2008
The State in Myanmar
by Robert Taylor
Published by Hurst & Co.
338 pages
Paper back: ISBN: 1850658935.
£19.99
Hard back: ISBN: 1850659095.
£50.00
NB: a REVIEW by Dr Michael Charney
Almost Englishmen:
Baghdadi Jews in British Burma;

by Ruth Fredman Cernea
paper back - 202 pages
Publisher: Lexington Books, U.S. (28 Jan 2007)
ISBN: 0739116479
Book obtainable in UK from Lexington Books, Book Network Int'l Ltd., Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY. Price: £15.99
Index

'Baghdadi' Jews are those who moved east, from origins in Iran, Persia, Syria etc. Before the war, while some were attracted towards Palestine, others gravitated to the British empire. Many settled in Myanmar. Anthropologist Ruth Cernea here traces how, by the time they fled before the Japanese advance in 1942, their culture and aspirations had become changed towards a more British model.
NB: a REVIEW by Patricia Herbert

The first book to be published in English on the Pa-O ethnic group - most of it up to date, and including history and politics. The author, Russ Christensen, is a former US officer with sympathies for the Pa-O rebels' long struggle against the Myanmar army.
Index
Oct 2006
The Pa-O: Rebels and Refugees
by Russ Christensen and Sann Kyaw
Publisher Silkworm Books (Chiengmai).
Paper back, 81 pages, bibliography, index, notes.
$22.50
ISBN: 9749575938
NB: a REVIEW by Gerry Abbott
2004
The Kinwun Min-Gyi's London Diary
introduction and translation by L.E. Bagshawe
£29.00 hard back - 434 pages
from Orchid Press
ISBN: 9745240214
Index

In 1872, between the Second and Third Anglo-Burmese Wars, a minister of the Burmese court travelled to Europe and was received with fascination by monarchs and high society in every country he visited. This is his diary of the trip. NB: here is a a brief review by Patricia Herbert. Also a much more comprehensive appraisal by the same reviewer is in our Members' Area.