Miss Burma

New York: Grove Press, 2017. Uncorrected Proof. Trade paperback. x, 355, [1] pages. Signed by the author on the title page. Charmaine Craig studied literature at Harvard College, received her MFA from the University of California at Irvine, and serves as a faculty member in the Department of Creative Writing at UC Riverside, where she particularly enjoys teaching literature, the art of the paragraph, and forms of narration. Her first novel, The Good Men, was a national bestseller translated into six languages. Her second novel, Miss Burma, longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction, is based on the lives of her mother and grandparents, all born in Burma. Formerly she was an actor in film and television. A beautiful and poignant story of one family during the most violent and turbulent years of world history, Miss Burma is a powerful novel of love and war, colonialism and ethnicity, and the ties of blood. Miss Burma tells the story of modern-day Burma through the eyes of Benny and Khin, husband and wife, and their daughter Louisa. After attending school in Calcutta, Benny settles in Rangoon, then part of the British Empire, and falls in love with Khin, a woman who is part of a long-persecuted ethnic minority group, the Karen. World War II comes to Southeast Asia, and Benny and Khin must go into hiding in the eastern part of the country during the Japanese Occupation, beginning a journey that will lead them to change the country's history. After the war, the British authorities make a deal with the Burmese nationalists, led by Aung San, whose party gains control of the country. When Aung San is assassinated, his successor ignores the pleas for self-government of the Karen people and other ethnic groups, and in doing so sets off what will become the longest-running civil war in recorded history. Benny and Khin's eldest child, Louisa, has a danger-filled, tempestuous childhood and reaches prominence as Burma's first beauty queen soon before the country falls to dictatorship. As Louisa navigates her newfound fame, she is forced to reckon with her family's past, the West's ongoing covert dealings in her country, and her own loyalty to the cause of the Karen people. Based on the story of the author's mother and grandparents, Miss Burma is a captivating portrait of how modern Burma came to be and of the ordinary people swept up in the struggle for self-determination and freedom. Derived from a Kirkus review: A couple’s love for each other and their children is tested through World War II and then through Burma’s long civil war. When Benny, a young Jewish Burmese man, meets a woman named Khin, he is instantly drawn to her though she's part of a persecuted ethnic minority group, the Karen. WWII has just begun, and Burma’s future as part of the British empire is uncertain. Benny and Khin marry, but their relationship is strained by their inability to speak the same language and by the religious and ethnic persecution they each face as Burma is drawn into years of war. Benny takes an increasingly active role in the military through WWII and into the Karen attempt at revolution, and Khin is forced to provide for their four children when he is tortured and imprisoned. Their eldest daughter, Louisa, comes of age during the constant upheaval and becomes the surprise winner of the Miss Burma pageant, unintentionally subverting her family’s war efforts by becoming a national symbol of unity. Based on her own family’s history, Craig’s novel is rich and layered, a complex weaving of national and personal trauma. Even as Benny and Khin navigate love and betrayal, pulled between obligation to their family and to their ethnic groups, Louisa also finds she must make her own choices about whether to be loyal to Burma or the Karens. Craig has written a captivating novel that skillfully moves from moments of quiet intimacy and introspection to passages portraying the swift evolution of political events as multiple groups and nations vie for control of Burma’s future. Mesmerizing and haunting. Condition: Very good / No DJ issued.

Keywords: Burma, Rangoon, British Empire, Ethnic Minority, Persecution, WWII, Japanese Occupation, Nationalism, Aung San, Assassination, Beauty Queen, Dictatorship

ISBN: 9780802126450

[Book #84683]

Price: $150.00

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