The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
From the British invasion of Mandalay in 1885, this lively novel of love, loss and longing sweeps across more than 100 years of history in Burma, India and Malaya.
Rajkumar Raha, an 11-year-old penniless orphan, is witness to the British attack. As he mingles with looters in the royal palace, he spies – and is instantly smitten by – 10-year-old Dolly, a maid, who accompanies the Burmese monarchs into exile in India. Years later, having made his fortune in teak, Raha goes in search of Dolly.
The fast-moving story links three families through three generations as they are buffeted by the region’s political turmoil and social upheaval. It’s storytelling on a grand scale – through empire, two world wars, independence struggles and Burma’s military regime – but Ghosh doesn’t neglect to make his characters both interesting and believable.
He also serves up more than a sumptuous family saga. By giving voice to the Burmese and Indians who are witness to the waxing and waning of empire, he offers an intelligent, thought-provoking and ultimately damning portrait of British colonialism.
Ghosh’s meticulously researched book took five years to write, with the seed of the story planted by tales of his own family’s history.
The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly
Connelly’s gritty novel about a political prisoner is a paean to the human spirit and a savage indictment of Burma’s military regime.
Teza, a student activist and popular protest singer, is in solitary confinement in a prison complex known as “The Cage”. Arrested during the pro-democracy protests in 1988, which were brutally suppressed, he has served seven years of a 20-year term.
Under the harsh prison regime, Teza suffers constant hunger – using lizards to supplement his diet – and vicious beatings. He depends on his Buddhist faith and memories of bygone days to endure the hardship.
Senior jailer Chit Naing, troubled by his conscience, is sympathetic to Teza’s plight, but junior jailer “Handsome” is sadistic and violent.
Also in the Cage is Little Brother, an orphaned boy raised in the prison, who survives by killing rats and selling them to the hungry prisoners. He becomes Teza’s server, delivering his prison meals.
When the chief warden tries to frame Teza – to increase his sentence – the novel turns thriller as both prisoner and boy face grave danger.
Connelly pulls no punches on the horrors of prison life, but offers the tentative bond formed between Teza and Little Brother as some small hope in this powerful tale.
Canadian poet and writer Connelly has visited Burma often and lived for two years among Burmese exiles on the Thailand-Burma border.
The River of Lost Footsteps by Thant Myint-U
Thant weaves some of his own family history into this comprehensive chronicle of Burma’s past. It harks back to Burma’s foundations, but comes into its own with the British assault and occupation in 1885 – a watershed year that ushers in the modern age.
The monarchy is abolished, old certainties disappear, and society is “aggressively transformed”. Wounded national pride is dealt a further blow, says Thant, when Britain rules the country as an appendage of India.
Burma emerges at independence in 1948 devastated by the second world war, with some of its top leaders assassinated in the previous year, and heralding the outbreak of the world’s longest-running civil war – hardly a promising start. Thant relates how the fledgling democracy is dogged by turbulent politics, foreign incursions and insurgencies. General Ne Win’s coup in 1962 brings the shutters down on the outside world, and Burma descends into decades of dictatorship.
Despite huge protests in 1988 and the emergence of the generals’ nemesis, Aung San Suu Kyi, the military remains in charge today.
“We fail to consider history at our peril,” says Thant in this subtle and engaging portrait of the country, which is mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand modern-day Burma.
Historian Thant was born in the US to Burmese parents. His grandfather U Thant was the UN secretary general for 10 years, until 1971.
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