4/29/2023 0 Comments Burmese love storiesPirate copies of George Orwell’s Burmese Days are a staple of those stalls. In the historic downtown of Yangon – the former capital once known as Rangoon – there are many streetside book vendors, their battered and dusty tomes laid out on the pavements for passing pedestrians to sift through. The country is full of voracious readers, though. Not only did the junta censor local writers ruthlessly, often imprisoning them, they also sought to close off the country from the outside world.Įven now, with Aung San Suu Kyi’s government running Burma in an uneasy partnership with the military, press freedom remains a distant ideal. That’s another legacy of the generals, who seized power in 1962 and ruled for almost 50 years. Yet, for all the diversity, Burma remains the least-known nation in south-east Asia and there is little contemporary writing about the country. I was inspired to write about Burma in part because it is such a dizzying mix of peoples, religions and landscapes.
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