Thursday, 26 September 2019
Where to buy my short story FGM
Where to buy my novella Black Rice
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Rice-Novella-K-Kaung/dp/0615797520#reader_0615797520
About a man with very dark skin captured by a rival ethnic group in Burma in 1948.
--
About a man with very dark skin captured by a rival ethnic group in Burma in 1948.
--
Review of my novella Black Rice by Peter Carey
Dear Dr Kyi,
I was deeply affected by your powerful essay 'Black Rice' which is beautifully written and extremely effective in evoking the tragedy which has overwhelmed Burma in all the years since independence. In fifty short pages it is all there - the tragedy and the waste and the pity of it all.
I was born in a recently independent Rangoon (30 April 1948) in a state which which was known as the 14-mile government because the Karens were pressing so hard on Rangoon's back door. My mother had to take her own mattress into the Dufferin Hospital when she gave birth to me! So the arrangemnents you evoke in 'Black Rice' are very accurate.
What particularly affects me is that the story is built at the very physical level - and the emotions generated are experienced through the body. It is almost as though one is hearing the sounds amplified through blindfolds - the same blindfold that the non-Burman protagonist is forced to wear when his naval vessel is ambushed and he falls into the hands of the Karen rebels. He hears and feels through his feet the execution of his friend. This is what I would call the 'the brillig and slithy tove' style of writing pace Lewis Carroll. It is very visceral and only to be experienced through the body. Every day this story comes back to me in my memory and imagination. It works like a depth charge deep within one's being - very powerful and very true. A remarkable achievement.
Well done! Chapeau - as the French would say!
Again sorry to be so long in writing back but I didn't want to send something too quickly as I needed it to
I was deeply affected by your powerful essay 'Black Rice' which is beautifully written and extremely effective in evoking the tragedy which has overwhelmed Burma in all the years since independence. In fifty short pages it is all there - the tragedy and the waste and the pity of it all.
I was born in a recently independent Rangoon (30 April 1948) in a state which which was known as the 14-mile government because the Karens were pressing so hard on Rangoon's back door. My mother had to take her own mattress into the Dufferin Hospital when she gave birth to me! So the arrangemnents you evoke in 'Black Rice' are very accurate.
What particularly affects me is that the story is built at the very physical level - and the emotions generated are experienced through the body. It is almost as though one is hearing the sounds amplified through blindfolds - the same blindfold that the non-Burman protagonist is forced to wear when his naval vessel is ambushed and he falls into the hands of the Karen rebels. He hears and feels through his feet the execution of his friend. This is what I would call the 'the brillig and slithy tove' style of writing pace Lewis Carroll. It is very visceral and only to be experienced through the body. Every day this story comes back to me in my memory and imagination. It works like a depth charge deep within one's being - very powerful and very true. A remarkable achievement.
Well done! Chapeau - as the French would say!
Again sorry to be so long in writing back but I didn't want to send something too quickly as I needed it to
mature.
Peter Carey – via email – 7-24-2013
Wednesday, 25 September 2019
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Call to put sanctions back on Burma--John Sifton is with HRW
Tuesday, 24 September 2019
Monday, 23 September 2019
Please review this book on Amazon if you can find the time--go to write a review, and post--you need an Amazon acct.
There's a pretty long "look inside" option, so you don't even need to buy the booklet.
The junta used to egg on the Arakanese against the Rohingya, but is now fighting the AA (Arakan Army).
This
handbook gives "all you need to know" about the Rohingya (a subset of
Burmese Muslims) having been there for literally ages, before there were
such things as national borders.
Nobel
Laureate A K Sen said at a conference at Columbia U that I helped
organize, "It's more true that the borders were drawn between them, than
that they came in (from Bangladesh) across the border."
Border lines began only in the 19th century.
The Rohingya have been there since the 8th-10th centuries.
This
booklet compiles how they came and their history in Burma--they came on
Arab dhows utilizing the monsoon winds. See also Michael Wood, The
Story of India.
km
With Prod. A K Sen, second from R.
Climate activists have shut down DC near Capital Building.
and neat American Petroleum Inst
17 yr old Greta Thunberg has been nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.
Sunday, 22 September 2019
Saturday, 21 September 2019
Review of my novel Wolf, by Burma Expert Dr. Sean Turnell--
Kyi May Kaung's Wolf is a novel of astonishing
depth. Following the life of a student leader of Burma's 1988 pro-democracy
uprisings, it touches the most profound questions of the quest for freedom,
amidst the alternative demands of love and loyalty in a life lived in extremis.
Wolf is simultaneously exciting, suspenseful, poignant and deeply
moving. Long after you finish reading, the characters will stay with you, as
will the insights it imparts.
Wolf works
firstly because K. M. Kaung is a great writer. It also works because
Kaung herself lived through many of the events described. That the novel is a
work of such integrity and wisdom is no little due to the fact that, in so many
ways, it shines a mirror on its author and her times.
Sean Turnell, Burma Expert, author Fiery Dragons: Banks,
Moneylenders and Microfinance in Burma (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
Press), 2009, available on Amazon.
Friday, 20 September 2019
Sunday, 15 September 2019
Saturday, 14 September 2019
Friday, 13 September 2019
To the world of nothing to read--
I used to send books to Burma at $100 for 100 lbs, but no longer can, no more sea mail.
If you are traveling to Burma fr USA, let me know and I will post some books for you to carry with you.
km
Thursday, 12 September 2019
Hell on the high seas--NEVER let someone you know work in the merchant marine
This is very like other true stories, such as the Maersk scandal.
Friday, 6 September 2019
Former PM, Burmese Democratic Government in Exile, returned to Burma.
I saw her late July, and she sent a hurried email that they got their passport, she did not say visa.
I hope they are OK. Photo is outside the gate, not inside being greeted by DASSK.
Frankly, I doubt it will work out, esp. with a son born in USA whose education is being disrupted.
But he sounds calm, the way he always does.
km
9-6-2019
Monday, 2 September 2019
Looking for these books--
I read this paper about 25 years ago, but I wasn't writing historical fiction then.
I would esp. like to read the Thein Pe Myint novel, less interested in the romances.
If you can find me pdfs, that would be great, or print copies.
km
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