Rudyard Kipling's words

Personally I love the Burman with the blind favouritism born of first impression. When I die I will be a burman, with twenty yards of real King's silk, that has been made in Mandalay, about my body, and a succession of sigarettes between my lips. I will have wave the cigarette to emphasise my conversation, which shall be full of jest and repartee, and I will always walk about with a pretty almond-coloured girl who shall laugh and jest too, as a young maiden ought. She shall not pull a sari over her head when a man looks at her and glare suggestively from behind it, nor shall she tramp behind me when I walk: for these are the customs of India. She shall look all the world between the eyes, in honesty and good fellowship, and I will teach her not to defile her pretty mouth with chopped tobacco in a cabbage leaf, but to inhale good cigarettes of Egypt's best brand.

-Rudyard Kipling

The River of Lost Footsteps by Thant Myint-U

The River of Lost Footsteps: 

A Personal History of Burma

By Thant Myint-U

Photo: Faber & Faber

Book description by the publisher:

For nearly two decades Western governments and a growing activist community have been frustrated in their attempts to bring about a freer and more democratic Burma - through sanctions and tourist boycottes - only to see an apparent slide toward even harsher dictatorship. But what do we really know about Burma and its history? And what can Burma's past tell us about the present and even its future?

In The River of Lost Footsteps, Thant Myint-U relates the story of modern Burma, in part through a telling of his own family's history, in an interwoven narrative that is by turns lyrical, dramatic and appalling. His maternal grandfather, U Thant, rose from being the schoolmaster of a small  town in the Irrawaddy Delta to become the UN Secretary General in the 1960s. And on his father's side, the author is descended from a long line of courtiers who served at Burma's Court of Ava for nearly two centuries. Through their stories and others, he portrays Burma's rise and decline in the modern world, from the time of Portugese pirates and renegade Mughal princes through the decades of British colonialism, the devastation of World War II and a sixty-year civil war that continues today and is the longest-running war anywhere in the world.

The River of Lost Footsteps is a work both personal and global, a distinctive contribution that makes Burma accessible and enthralling.

This book was first published in 2008.

Source: Faber & Faber

Little Daughter by Zoya Phan

Little Daughter:

A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West

By Zoya Phan

Photo: Penguin Group Canada

Book description by the publisher:

Zoya Phan was born in the remote jungles of Burma to the Karen tribe, which for decades has been resisting Burma’s brutal military junta. At age 13, her peaceful childhood was shattered when the Burmese army attacked. So began two terrible years of running, as Zoya was forced to join thousands of refugees hiding in the jungle. Her family scattered, her brothers went deeper into the war, and Zoya, close to death, found shelter at a Thai refugee camp, where she stayed until 2005 when she fled to the U.K. and claimed asylum. There, in a twist of fate, she became the public face of the Burmese people’s fight for freedom. This is her inspirational story.

This book was first published in 2009.
Source: Penguin Group Canada