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Finding George Orwell in Burma

Emma Larkin

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Finding George Orwell in Burma

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  • Borders Original Voices Award for Nonfiction (2005)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

Finding George Orwell in Burma

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Unit price
per
Condition guide
ISBN: 9781594200526
Author: Emma Larkin
Publisher: Penguin Press
Date of Publication: 2005-06-30
Format: Hardcover
Related Collections: Politics, Travel, Biographies & Memoirs, History
Goodreads rating: 3.96
(rated by 3537 readers)

Description

From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. The author, an American journalist fluent in Burmese, writing under a pseudonym, notes that there's a joke in Burma (now Myanmar) that Orwell wrote not one novel about the country, but three: Burmese Days, Animal Farm and 1984. The first takes place during the British colonial days, while the latter two, Larkin argues, more closely reflect the situation there today. " 'Truth is true only within a certain period of time,' " she quotes a regime spokesman saying after a 1988 uprising. " 'What was truth once may no longer be truth after many months or years.' " Indeed, providing an accurate representation of Burmese life proves daunting, as Larkin encounters a nation bristling with informants and paranoia. Her language skills, however, allow her to glean information and mingle with the country's reserved and cautious intelligentsia. In addition to Larkin's depiction of the political landscape, the book also features wonderfully vibrant descriptions of the land and people. Larkin's prose is striking and understated, and she allows the people she meets to speak their parts without editorializing. In this way, she comes across not as an idealist but rather as an inquisitive and trustworthy guide to the underlying reality of a country whose leaders would rather have outsiders focus only on their carefully constructed veneer. "All you had to do, it seemed," Larkin writes, "was scratch the surface of one of the town's smiling residents and you would find bitterness or tears." Her efforts have resulted in a lucid and insightful illustration of truly Orwellian circumstances. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
 

  • Borders Original Voices Award for Nonfiction (2005)
Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

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