Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Amy Tan
Saving Fish From Drowning.
Richly comic send-up of modern tourism when a
group of bumbling American visitors go missing near Inle Lake, with memorable conse-
quences.
TRAVELOGUE AND REPORTAGE
EmmaLarkin
Everything is Broken: Life Inside Burma
.EvenbetterthanLarkin'searlier
Burmese book,
Everything is Broken
provides a harrowing portrait of Myanmar in the after-
math of Cyclone Nargis and a damning indictment of the ruling junta's spectacular inaction
in the face of the country's greatest ever natural disaster.
Emma Larkin
Finding George Orwell in Burma
. Enjoyable and insightful mix of travel
writingandreportage:parttravelogue,followinginthefootstepsofOrwellduringhisstintas
a colonial police officer in Burma; part examination of the state of Myanmar under the gen-
erals-anditsuncannyresemblancetotheOrwelliandystopiasof
Animal Farm
and
Nineteen
Eighty-Four.
Norman Lewis
Golden Earth: Travels in Burma.
Classic tome by one of the twentieth
century's finest travel writers, describing a 1951 journey the length of the country from
Myeik to Myitkyina during the turbulent early years after independence, all narrated with
Lewis's characteristic insight and wit.
Rory Maclean
Under the Dragon: A Journey Through Burma
. Genre-bending book cross-
cutting an account of Maclean's travels in the footsteps of Sir George Scott with a series
of novel-like episodes portraying the lives of ordinary Burmese in the shadow of the 8888
Uprising. It's somewhat uneven, although a couple of the novelistic interpolations are very
fine.
AndrewMarshall
The Trouser People
. Inspired by the diaries of colonial empire-builder
Sir George Scott - who also appears in Rory Maclean's
Under the Dragon
-
The Trouser
People
serves up a compelling mix of travelogue and reportage as Marshall ventures into
some of Myanmar's remotest ethnic minority areas. Brave, black and savagely funny.
W. Somerset Maugham
The Gentleman in the Parlour
. Travel-diary-style jottings describ-
ingjourneysuptheAyeyarwadytoMandalayandintotheShanhills(plusavoyagedownthe
Mekong to Saigon), with plenty of quaint characters and exotic scenery on the way. A good
record of 1930s travel in the grand style.
POLITICS AND CURRENT EVENTS
Maggie Lemere & Zoe West
Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma's
Military Regime.
Interviews with 22 persecuted Burmese including child conscripts, sex
workers, refugee monks and representatives from ethnic minorities forced to labour for the
regime - a simple but eloquent indictment of life under the generals.