Miss Burma

by Charmaine Craig

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 Burman 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.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Asia, Book Club, Historical, Novels, Contemporary

368 pages, Hardcover

First published May 2, 2017

About the author

Charmaine Craig is the author of the novels My Nemesis; Miss Burma, longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction; and The Good Men, a national bestseller. Her writing has been published in a dozen languages and appeared in venues including The New York Times Magazine, Narrative Magazine, AFAR Magazine, and Dissent. Formerly an actor in film and television, she 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. She lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reached for support ‘while’ reading this book.
Usually - I’m careful to not read more than 1 or 2 reviews - or no reviews- of a book I’m definitely interested in - until after I’ve taken my turn at reading it myself. ( trying not to be influenced or hear details).....
But there are exceptions.

I reached for support ( most for buddy-thinking with others and points of view about the characters)......when I read/listened to ‘Anna Karenina’, not long ago. It added pleasure as well as deeper comprehension.

With ‘Miss Burma’..... I reached to one specific person ( and google to expand my understanding of the history - especially around the Civil War).
I had no previous knowledge about the ethnic conflicts in Burma ( now called Myanmar) - which was the ‘largest’ civil war in history. The war started in 1948 shorty after Burma became independent from the United Kingdom.
I knew nothing about the Karen people: the 2nd largest ethnic group in Burma that live in Southeast Asia.
The Burmese ethnic group being the largest. Over the last thousand years, all sorts of ethnic groups have controlled Burma. In 1824 the British began their conquest of Burma which was completed in 1886. Burma was then incorporated into their Indian Empire. The conquest of Burma by the British lead to freedom to the minority ethnic groups....
but the rivalry worsened between the groups. During WWII, the Japanese occupied Burma. Horrific atrocities - massacre and rape of women took place. The Karen people fought back and formed political groups with the support of the British - but the different leaders of Burma - didn’t help create a peaceful democracy. With so much strife within the Karen community - many of them left to seek sanctuary in other nations.

The PERSONAL STORYTELLING.... between Benny and Khin - the struggles in their marriage and their oldest daughter, Louise, ( Miss Burma pageant beauty and her challenge choosing who to be loyal to — the Burma’s or Karen’s) — were gut wrenching ‘real’.
With Benny being Jewish Burmese and Khin from the Karen ethnic group - the line between resentments and loyalty touches our shared and enduring humanity.

My BOOK READING supporter - was *Gumble’s Yard*! ( little did he know the difference he made for me)......
Many thanks to Gumble’s review with an insert link by the author, that made me cry - I returned to my own reading with a new zest of excitement. ( I no longer felt ‘as’ stupid)..... Soon after reading Gumble’s review - my reading PICKED UP — things fell into place. I became so interested - I was hanging on tightly and not letting go.

I HIGHLY SUGGEST readers read ‘Gumble Yard’s review on ‘Miss Burma’......for those people - like me - that worry the history & politics might be challenging. His review is HELPFUL AND INSPIRING! - clear - easy to comprehend- with TIPS on ways to read the book!!!

I also must thank Renata..... my sweet California friend! READ HER REVIEW TOO ....
to get an ‘emotional‘ sense of this book - and a moving expression of SO MUCH LOVE and APPRECIATION for ‘Miss Burma’.
Without the gentle loving ruthless push from Renata - I may not have read this book now. THANK YOU, *Renata*.

So...
That’s it.....all you get from MY review.... haha!

READ GUMBLE’S YARD review ( 3 stars from him)....
and Renata’s (5 stars from her).....

Also....I loved the 5 star review from *Trish*!!! Thank you Trish!

A few more added thoughts from me:
......The personal parts of the storytelling felt - equally - as traumatic as the national historical traumatic parts. There was a personal scene describe that was one of the worse human suffering’s I’ve ever read in any book. It’s a hard visual to let go of - but thankfully the author was kind enough not to drag out this awful scene - yet it needed to be told.
“The wars of brutality could not contain the reality of their lives”.......Isn’t that the truth?/!

Through the voice of the narrating - at times I felt I was living in the village in Calcutta- it was a part of the story easy to imagine having traveled there myself many years ago.
Through the writing - and getting to know the main characters- there were times this story was so intimate- I forgot that I needed to ‘struggle’. ( a few times I even laughed with the charming dialogue).

One of the things that stayed with me was knowing that this fiction story - with so much to learn - was based on true facts about author’s ‘mother’ and grandparents.
My gosh - I could ‘feel’ the depths of passion from which she wrote.
I agree with Gumble - when he said Charmaine Craig over wrote this novel.
However - I could see, feel, and understand why even the smallest tidbits of details - parts that felt less important to include - were personal to the author.
So my heart ached with love for her.

This novel took me on a journey- I laughed and cried -
I struggled- then didn’t struggle -
I’m left with love, appreciation and respect for Charmaine Craig. I tried to imagine the years of work - effort - fight within herself - to get this story written - to the best of her ability - linked through her umbilical cord...
mother -
and grandparents -
It had to be an emotional journey to write it.
Ultimately- Charmaine Craig’s massive novel with heartbreaking history and characters that felt real - reaches into our hearts emotionally too!!!

Thank you Renata and Gumble!

[Heidi Wiechert · Rating 3 out of 5]

A layered and subtle historical fiction about a family in Burma and how they make it through all sorts of terrible things that happen there.

This is an incredibly dark book based on the true family history of Charmaine Craig. My book club had a tough time discussing it.

"Your problem is that you believe in right and wrong. Don't you know evil will find you no matter what?" pg 11.

First of all, the introductory portion doesn't make sense until the last half of the book. The pacing is glacially slow. A few of our club members couldn't make it through the first couple of chapters.

Secondly, the constant warring and torture of innocents by the conquering forces is really difficult to read.

"We welcomed them because we'd been persecuted by the Burmans for centuries, we'd been their slaves - our villages perpetually attacked, our people perpetually preyed upon, stripped of everything from our clothing to our lives." pg 37.

It is an important history, certainly, but the darkness of it made me feel sick.

A third problem club members had with Miss Burma is it feels disjointed.

At first, readers thought Khin and Benny were the focus of the book. But then, the point of view drifted around to Louisa, their beautiful daughter, and her story took over.

We must find a way to rejoice in our circumstances. We must find a way to do more than endure." pg 145

Basically, the Karen are an ethnic minority in Burma, now Myanmar. For centuries, the Karen have been enslaved by the Burmese. The underlying story is about how the Karen tried to unite against the ruling government to create a federation.

"Our modesty that runs so deep it is almost self-annihilating. But now.. our relative invisibility strikes me as very sad. ... If you stand for a moment behind their eyes- behind the eyes of anyone for whom modesty is not an ultimate virtue- we appear to value our lives less than they do." pg 168

Against this background, the family of Khin and Benny tries to survive and do what they believe is right.

This story is full of flawed characters and whole passages where most of the action takes place in people's minds.

There is fairly graphic torture, rape and violence. If any of those are triggers for you, beware.

Recommended for patient readers and those who can handle a very dark history. The book club certainly learned a lot about Burma from this book. And bullets still fly in Myanmar today.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

This deeply impactful novel, contrary to what the title might suggest, is not merely beautifully written and proportioned; it is weighted with historical, cultural, philosophical, and political insights from an area of the world well hidden from the sight and understanding of the majority of Americans. The novel is so dense with authentic-seeming detail that it demands the kind of close attention few novels warrant.

In a L.A. Times interview, Charmaine Craig tells us this novel is based on her mother Louisa’s story. Craig could not have done a better job of memorializing her mother’s memory, and it was heartbreaking to hear her recount meeting the popular Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi a few years ago and being recognized as her mother’s child.

Craig spent nearly a decade writing this novel, using some of the time researching and reading declassified CIA documents to see how her mother’s first husband was murdered in the process of peace talks with the Burmese leadership, apparently with the help of some double-dealing by the CIA. Her mother, a one-time beauty queen, became a leader of Karen rebels in the mountainous eastern region of Burma. While at first Craig did not want the book to be political, it is clearly a political document, and extremely informative for that. It puts the political wrangling in Burma, particularly now in this time of Burma’s opening to the West and the Rohingya persecution, in historical and global perspective.

Books of such regional particularity are rare things in English; that Craig attempts to share with us the tumultuous experience of her parents and grandparents growing up in such a consequential time and in such a distant clime is a rare gift. What makes this spectacular novel well worthy of its place on the 2017 Man Booker Prize long list is not the accuracy of its history, but how Craig’s characters navigate and philosophize their roles in their own fictional histories. Deeply meaningful statements on the human condition are sprinkled throughout the book, observations and philosophies articulated by one or another character facing a great challenge.

The predominant religion of Burma is Buddhist, though many Karens are animist or Christian. Craig spent some time explaining the following phrase:

“It is better to be in a position of having to ask for charity than to be in the position of never having to ask.”

This sounds very close to a lesson I’d once heard from Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk from Vietnam, who said that having less than one needed offered an opportunity for developing and expressing compassion. Craig explains that having to ask for something develops one’s spiritual muscle.

In another circumstance, Craig draws a lesson from a Jewish rabbi when one of her characters is appealing for advice:

“One of man’s injunctions is to strive to live joyously. In the face of these terrible wars abroad, when our very peace is threatened, we must find a way to rejoice in our circumstances. We must find a way to do more than endure.”

What a remarkable and completely freeing and true thing to say. At the end of the novel, several characters look upon their lives and recognize this necessity to strive…to find greatness in the midst of failure. The lessons are applied, and it is grace-giving and forgiving and loving, despite all.

Individuals engaged in a civil war lasting generations are concerned with the state of their souls:

"I’ve been trying to figure out all these years—in defending our rights with this revolution—is whether or not we have the right to kill…It seems clear enough that violence, murder even of the murderous, is a surrender of a kind. But do we have the right to stand by and watch people be made slaves…"

I love that Craig asks these big, earthshaking questions because the answers are the things that may save us. The questions show us we are worthy to be saved. We will all come across these questions in the course of a life and to have a story big enough, consequential enough, to introduce them without pedantry is a tremendous gift.

Craig mentioned in her interview that she worked as an actress for a time until the stereotyping in Hollywood became too much of an obstacle to great work. I can tell her from this side of the screen the failures of imagination by casting directors and producers are agonizingly apparent. But I wish I could encourage her to “be the change you seek” and to write for the screen if she can. I would tell her the country is hungry for diversity of color and experience and she is likely to be very successful, if that is where her heart lies.

I feel so grateful for this big dense book of history and imagination. Craig is enormously talented and I wish her every success. The book is also available in audio, read by the author, produced by Blackstone Audio. The author has a disconcertingly American voice when one might expect something accented, even British. However, were Craig to publish the book she says in the interview that she wrote first--the one about her mother and herself growing up--that American accent would make all kinds of sense. Sounds like a good sequel, doesn't it?

However one consumes this book, I highly recommend it.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook performed by the author, Charmaine Craig. 13h 21 min

3.5 stars

Placed on the long list for the Women 's Prize, I decided on this book because it is the FIRST book I have ever read that talks about Burma, its break from British colonialism and the many years of unrest and bloodshed that ensued. The author herself describes this story as a mixture of a political and historical novel while also relating part of her family history- particularly her maternal lineage.

Miss Burma was a slow burn type of novel, but I easily became swayed by the cadence of the author's voice as she took me from her grandparents courtship, to their married years, to her grandfather's imprisonment and finally to her mother's beauty pageant and the civil war that made her a strong political activist.

The author wrote this book with the collaboration of her mother, Louisa, and the vivid descriptions really helped me have a feeling of the time period (1930's-1960's). I did experience a loss when the story transitioned after 15 chapters from Craig's grandparents to her mother's narrative. However, that jolt didn't shake me up too much and I certainly wouldn't have wanted that to be omitted. My hat is tipped in the direction of the author who made sure her family's story was permanently fixed on paper. I shall not be surprised if this book finds itself adapted on the big screen someday.

That being said and it seems odd to state, but this book was laden with a feeling of being too wordy. However, I think it's impossible to overlook what is truly an informative and compelling narrative of one family's story alongside that of their nation.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a fictionalised retelling of a remarkable and true family history, which the author has told herself in a Literary Hub article which is included at the back of my edition of the book, but the link for which I include below.

https://lithub.com/my-mysterious-moth...

The article itself effectively contains the whole plot of the book – so is best read alongside the book (for which it provides a useful summary) rather than before it; but the opening paragraphs sets the scene nicely:

Known by her maiden name, Louisa Benson, my mother was not Burman, the majority race in Myanmar. Her father was Sephardic, and her mother was of the Karen ethnic nationality, one of Burma’s indigenous and chronically oppressed people.

She was born on the eve of Burma’s involvement in the Second World War, when the Japanese invaded, led by a band of Burmans wanting to oust the British.

More detail on the life of Louisa Benson can be found below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_...

The book opens with Louisa’s parents – the author’s maternal grandparents – Benny and Khin meeting for the first time on a pier in Burma just after the start of the World War (but at a time when Burma was still felt to be immune) and thereafter traces their lives and that of some key characters around them (particularly a lover of Benny’s and two lovers of Khin) and their children, alongside the tumultuous post-war history of Burma (particularly as experienced by the Karen people).

The two threads – family memoir and national/tribal history – interweave naturally in a two way interaction: not only are the family profoundly and traumatically affected by that history, but they also play an important role in, it particularly in the Karen separatist movement. The other key family character is Craig’s mother Louisa – who twice wins the Miss Burma competition, and has later periods both as a movie star, as something of a tabloid victim (but both shot through with Burmese politics) and then as enforced-by-circumstance default leader of one of the key rebel movements.

A key part of the book is the difficulty of communication across language, cultural and people barriers – Benny and Khin’s first conversation is facilitated by a translator and their early conversations (even Khin disclosing her pregnancy) in an almost pidgin language. Different experience – particularly traumatic experiences of war, detention, rape torture only serve to widen the difficulty of communication and Louisa’s difficult relationships with both her parents only adds additional lines of non-communication, and the dimension of generation.

Key political themes of the book include:

- The malign role of British colonialism in handicapping Burmese independence and poisoning race/people relations from the offset, particularly to be able to retreat from colonial responsibilities as soon as possible post War
- The equally malign influence after that of American overseas policy, in a State department obsessed by the domino theory and a part CIA/part privateer group whose ultimate aim in their overt and covert interference in Burmese politics is unclear to anyone – the reader, the Burmese and one has to conclude even themselves
- The validity or otherwise of violent resistance in the face of oppression
- The tension in the separatist movements between arguing for independence or federalism (while effectively condoning and consolidating the poor relations between peoples) and instead aiming for a United democracy (but then trusting in the good faith of the majority Burman group, in the face of all evidence to the contrary)

So overall a book with a fascinating and true back-story, with great political insight and a great take on a relatively unknown history and strong themes.

However it was not a book that I felt was very well executed and the reason I think lies in the fact that the author, who is clearly a very talented writer, has overwritten the book.

In particular I struggled with the overbearing voice of the traditional omniscient narrator, which seems to remove the agency from the characters and leaving interpretation space for the reader. I felt that too often I was being told what the characters were feeling more than being given space to understand what they were feeling. In fact more than that, typically I was told what one of the characters knew that the other character was feeling or indicating – in this book facial expressions, particularly eyes take over the communication that the characters find difficult. A typical example is:

“Don’t you see” his searching glance seemed to tell her “All of that – that suffering you put yourself through – it came out of a need not to offend. And as long as you concern yourself with upsetting others, you’re in prison.” And “As I see it, you are your father’s daughter. He was a warrior, too, in his way. Trust him to endure this”

And even the characters eventually seem to realise that this is the only method by which the author will allow them to communicate

“Don’t speak” she said “Don’t immediately deny it. Just listen to me, and let me read your eyes”

Finally, to end on a positive note, the book which took years in the writing (Craig’s first draft was based on her relationship with her mother) has become eeringly, if depressingly prescient given the recent persecution of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Even more fascinatingly, given the West’s current disillusion with the Nobel laureate and long-term political prisoner turned political leader Aung San Suu Kyi for her apparent acquiescence in these acts, her father Aung San, Japanese backing fighter turned national liberator turned British backed leader features in the book as someone distrusted by the Karen people:

How very Western to trust the word of a man who speaks fluently, intelligently, even brilliantly. How very Western to trust that he has the same code of honour. How naive to think that because he makes one gesture towards Western democracy he couldn’t possibly at the same time be plotting a systematized form of inequality – a state in which one “dominant” race rules and is sanctioned to discriminate against others – against “minorities”.

[Renata · Rating 5 out of 5]

A richly rewarding read on many levels. An exhausting read emotionally and yet uplifting as well. A complex novel that is both the history of Burma from about 1939 and how it became today’s Myanmar. I knew little about Burma before reading this: a small country in Asia, tea plantations, elephants, jungle, some British involvement, and lots of ugliness in WWII w the Japanese invasion. Now I know a great deal more and how broad of an effect the power struggles of WWII, the ensuing revolution and the machinations of the Cold War have had on this small but ethnically diverse nation.
I had heard the author speak at a literary conference about her family and how this book came into being. Like many immigrant families, they live in two worlds - their new country and the one left behind. For Craig, the shadow and pull of Burma on her mother was particularly strong. It is her mother, an ethnic Karen minority (almost fifty percent of the population) who was crowned Miss Burma twice during a time when the Burmese were trying to deny the Karen their voice and freedom in their own country.
I’ve read many war books, probably a consequence of my own families past during WWII in Europe. War is brutal and there is enough brutality to go around in this book, too. But there is also tremendous courage and commitment to family and the greater cause of creating a just federation of the different ethnic groups to provide a harmonious home for all. Well, one has only to listen or read the news to realize that had not been achieved.
What I feel most in awe of is how fully alive and three dimensional the people in this novel are. She lets you inhabit their very body and mind in a way that is only possible in great literature. The confusion, the turmoil, the never quite knowing who to trust, what information to trust, what feelings in your inner self to trust is an ever present theme and one so clearly understandable in the chaos of war and power struggles, the struggles to survive in the aftermath. She writes with a large and generous heart, a heart wrenching portrayal of real people contending with heart wrenching issues of survival and being true to themselves and to those they love.
Her love of the land, the greens and blues, the mist, the rain, the humidity, the forests and mountains and streams, left me feeling like I walked the trails, like stood on wharf and looked out to sea with Khin and and Benny.
Craig writes beautifully, intelligently, and with deep reflection. I can see how it took her fifteen years. I have a beautiful hard back edition and smile when I see how many pages I dog- eared to return to and reread a section once I finished the book. The last third of the book became ever more compelling and the number of pages I turned a corner on reflects my intense involvement with the story and characters lives.
I love this book and know it’s many stories will be with me for years to come. I also want to say it is a very political book which will speak to many readers, especially those who follow history. That might also be too much for other readers who are more interested in the human stories. The political reflections were an equally important and meaningful part to me because I’ve come to realize how much everything really is political: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I will add one quote portraying Craig’s grandfather, Benny a Jewish Indian man who married her grandmother, Khin who belonged to the Karen minority group long persecuted by the Burmese:
“One sweltering night he paced his study in nothing more than his underpants, mumbling to himself. ...The problem was that there would always be problems among men, and neither Nu’s unity nor communism accounted for that, or allowed men to negotiate their problems through government. Only democracy did that.”
Ahh, one more: “We’re not alone in this,” Lyndon said, putting his arm around her waist. “If we look past our petty proclivities, past our troubled history; if we see the broader common goal —we Karen’s, and also the Kachin, the Mon, the Shans, the Muslims, the Burmans — everyone with an eye to democracy...If we find a way to come together, they won’t be able to stand in our way. And our friends will be there to help us.”
This books stories and themes are so immediate! I’m grateful I read it. The tears I shed ( I rarely cry over books) were for every mother and child separated by war and conflict, for every idealist past and present who has fought for inclusion and dignified, respectful treatment for all:

[Roman Clodia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to confess I'm utterly perplexed as to what this is doing on the 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction longlist.

There's the germ of a good story here but I wish Craig had written it as the family memoir on which the tale is based rather than trying to turn it into a 'sweeping' novel: she's not a natural writer and

* her prose is clunky ('As though to nurture the seed of her doubt in his ability to be honest (and as though to punish her for the falseness she'd mentioned), he found himself lying to her in response'), and drifts awkwardly between POVs.

*there are awkward expressions throughout ('what was so very unforeseen'; '...Benny said, some kind of pain flooding up to his lips'; 'and charged him in English-crossed Burmese')

* her characters are one-dimensional and implausible, plus they do that thing that drives me mad in historical novels: the perfectly ordinary main character somehow meets and interacts with everyone 'famous' from the time from Aung San to General Ne Win, and even the British PM!

*the book oscillates between a rash of insta-love romances and text-book history lectures - though almost all the historical substance happens off-stage, as it were, and the narrative voice just inserts itself gives us brief bulletins amidst all the family melodrama.

* there's no substantial evocation of Burma/Myanmar as a country replete with culture, food, cities, rural areas, and jungle, rich in natural resources and glittering with gem stones. For example, the Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon is mentioned in passing and if you don't know how magnificent it is, covered in gold, well, this book won't tell you: https://www.renown-travel.com/burma/y...

I really wanted to love this book but rapidly found myself skimming the over-written romances and just reading the (limited) history. In some ways, Burma's situation during WW2 parallels that of India as both rebel against British imperialism which leads them, temporarily, into a fraught and short-lived alliance with the Japanese. Post-war independence leads (not inevitably) eventually to military dictatorship and the CIA are predictably up to their usual shady and nefarious goings-on.

So there is so much potential in Craig's idea but, honestly, it needs a better, more experienced, more subtle and more sophisticated writer to do it justice. The obvious comparison is with Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet - this book is mere froth and popcorn beside that. Which is a shame.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It feels surprising that “Miss Burma” is perhaps the least known novel on this year’s Women’s Prize longlist when its plot and the origins of its story are so sensational. Perhaps its initial publication made a bigger splash in the US, but I’ve seen many people in the UK remark that they had not heard of this book before its prize nomination. The blurbs on its cover from accomplished authors such as Viet Thanh Nguyen and Garth Greenwell certainly speak highly of the regard this novel is held in. It’s Charmaine Craig’s second novel, but prior to becoming a writer she was an actress who notably played the live-action model upon whom the animated character of Disney’s Pocahontas was based off from. The story of “Miss Burma” and the central character of Louisa were based on Craig’s mother who had a truly epic life as a beauty pageant winner, famous Burmese actress and political revolutionary. Both Louisa and her family were intimately involved in the complicated social and political changes that occurred in the recent history of Burma (presently known as Myanmar.) Charmaine Craig reimagines her family’s harrowing story which parallels this turbulent 20th century period that involved a break from colonialism, warring ethnic groups, invasion/interference from numerous foreign powers and the military leadership of the country after a coup d’etat in 1962.

Read my full review of Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig on LonesomeReader

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 5 out of 5]

How strange, the book has been with me for several months. I postponed everything: it seemed that it would turn out to be either cloying glamour in the style of Minaev's books, or a description of the cruelties being committed in Southeast Asia, like "Beauty Is a Wound" by Kurniawan. And yesterday I took it and plunged into an amazing, bitter and beautiful story, where exoticism and glamour are the last thing and it's not about that at all.

About what then? About family relationships, about how small discrepancies in the picture of the world grow into an abyss of misunderstanding, and a small lie gives rise to great distrust. How the willingness of one person to constantly sacrifice their interests for the sake of the comfort of others leads to a painful distortion, and ultimately does not make anyone happy.

About how it feels to feel one's belonging to a persecuted people and how much the infringement of the rights of a nation integrated into European culture differs from the impotence in the face of the threat of genocide of those who are uneducated, disenfranchised, unable to attract the attention of the world community to their plight.

Золотая дремотная Азия?
Один из заветов человеку – стремиться жить в радости. Перед лицом страшных войн, идущих вокруг, когда и нашему миру угрожает опасность, мы должны найти способ радоваться, в любых обстоятельствах. Мы не должны просто выживать.
Как странно, книга пролежала у меня в читалке несколько месяцев. Все откладывала: представлялось, что это окажется либо приторным гламуром в стиле минаевских книжек, либо жестью жестяной на тему Юго-Восточной Азии, вроде "Красота - это горе" Курниавана. А вчера взяла ее и погрузилась в удивительную, горькую и прекрасную историю, где экзотика и гламур — дело последнее и вообще это не о том.

О чем тогда? О семейных отношениях, о том, как мелкие расхождения в картине мира разрастаются в бездну непонимания, а маленькая ложь рождает большое недоверие. Как готовность одного непрестанно жертвовать своими интересами ради комфорта других ведет к болезненному перекосу, и, в конечном счете не делает счастливым никого.

О том, каково это, ощущать свою принадлежность к гонимому народу и как сильно отличается ущемленность в правах интегрированной в европейскую культуру нации от бессилия перед угрозой геноцида тех, кто не образован, бесправен, не может привлечь к своему бедственному положению внимания мировой общественности.

Бирма, которая теперь называется Мьянмой, сильно неоднородна по этническому составу: титульная нация бирманцы (собственно народ мьянма) составляет большинство, но есть также шаны, арканцы, китайцы, индийцы, качины, карены и практически не осталось рохинджа, около полумиллиона которых были физически уничтожены и вынужденно мигрировали, явив миру классический пример этногеноцида (по мнению ООН).

Немного о каренах. Когда читаешь книгу Чармейн Крейг, кажется, что они составляют едва не половину населения страны. Вики говорит о семи процентах, правда с оговоркой, что сведения неточны, поскольку полная перепись населения не проводилась в стране с 1939 года. Почему именно карены? Потому что мама героини принадлежит к этому притесняемому нацменьшинству, которое очередной военный диктатор собирался стереть их с лица земли.

А папа у нее еврей. Однако, оставшись в детстве сиротой, лишен был возможности влиться в общину, ощутить поддержку пусть притесняемого, но мощного сообщества. По большому счету, "Мисс Бирма" не столько рассказ о Луизе Бенсон Крейг, которая дважды удостаивалась этого титула, вышла замуж за генерала Лин Хтина, а после его гибели возглавила каренскую национально-освободительную борьбу. Этот роман в большей степени история ее родителей: отца Бенни и матери Хтин.

Которые могли бы прожить жизнь более или менее счастливо или несчастливо, спокойно или бурно, в богатстве или бедности, но оказались в эпицентре потрясений Второй Мировой. потом непрекращающейся гражданской войны, хунты, диктатуры - тех невыносимо страшных вещей, которыми государственная машина крушит хрупкие косточки отдельно взятого человека.

Пронзительная, трагичная, исполненная безнадежной нежности мечта о счастье, о спокойной жизни, в которой маленький человек мог бы спокойно работать, решать свои проблемы, заботиться о семье, справляться более или менее эффективно с текущими кризисами. В мире где тебя не схватят, не разлучат с детьми, не бросят в застенки, не подвергнут пыткам, не изнасилуют, отрезав сосок.

Чармейн Крейг этой историей своей бабушки делает для Мьянмы то, что Исабель Альенде сделала для Чили, заставив мир сострадать своей униженной родине. Книга прекрасная, перевод Марии Александровой замечательно хорош, такой яркий, сочный, богатый язык.

[Whiskey Tango · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I have never had a need to be seen, to be recognized for doing anything. In fact, I prefer to be invisible. Nothing seems more appropriate than to pass out of this world as invisibly as I passed into it, remarked by only one or two who truly cared for me.”

Rangoon. 1940. A man sees a woman in a red dress standing on the jetty and falls in love. The woman does not even speak his language. She belongs to the Karen, a persecuted ethnic minority. They marry. They suffer. They grow apart. A daughter of their strained relationship becomes 1956’s Miss Burma, but the military dictatorship exploits her as the face of the "unity" and "integration" in post-colonial Burma. The dictator deceives. He distracts the international community while the Burman ethnic majority exterminates the minorities—including the Karen people. "Burma for Burmans!" "Blood and Soil!" Miss Burma trades in her tiara for... a rifle, and her heels for fatigues. She becomes a freedom fighter against the dictatorship of Ne Win. Implausible? Charmaine Craig bases her story on the lives of her grandparents and mother, who was the historical Miss Burma.

Benny is a lonely outsider. Born in Rangoon to a Jewish-Anglo-Indian family of rabbis and merchants, he spent his sad childhood at a Catholic orphanage in Calcutta. From the nuns, he learned to unclench his fists and quote Augustine. "God loves each of us as if there were only one of us." But Benny's bad luck tests his fidelity to love. He returns to Rangoon to work as a customs inspector where he meets his future wife, Khin (she of the red dress). He barely remembers his native tongue of Burmese and is only able to talk with his Karen-speaking wife through a translator. Khin’s childhood was worse than Benny’s. The Karen endured centuries of murder and terror at the hands of the Burmans, who killed her mother and disemboweled her father-- in front of Khin's eyes. After marrying Benny, Khin endures years of separation and a horrific mutilation. An animist, she believes that the living must invite the dead to return. "Come back. Come back." In a sense, she needs to summon herself to return to life.

Misery plagues the mismatched couple. Invasion, occupation, starvation, separation, imprisonment, house arrest, economic collapse--and a civil war without end-- pile on top of the inherent challenges of marriage."Marriage is a life sentence." Marriage symbolizes Burma. How can peace be found in either Burma or marriage? The answer may involve persisting through trauma and sorrow. Though many will break their vows to love until death--misunderstanding and shame will likely kill any remnant of love. I admired Benny--a gentle soul living in violent times who drops his fists and reaches for his pen. When his sacrifices seem unappreciated by Khin, Benny finds a "soulmate" in Rita, a fellow prisoner. The soulmate dynamic struck me. Rita, a political dissident, serves a 15-year sentence in the same prison that confines Benny. In prison, they never see each other's faces, but pass letters to each other for 7 years, until Benny's release. Her grace inspires Benny to fight despair. Denied kisses or caresses, they exchanged living words. When free, Benny visited Rita and saw her face for the first time. He unsuccessfully begs his American connections to obtain her release, and Louisa uses her Miss Burma contacts to win Rita's freedom. Khin hates this woman who captured her husband's heart. By the time Rita walks out of prison, Benny has immigrated to the United States (as a reward for helping the CIA). So Rita visits Khin, who may be dying of fever with only her faithful servant, Hta Hta, to witness her passing. Rita comforts Khin, and Khin finally sympathizes with Rita, realizing that she will never see Benny as a free woman. Whether or not Khin actually dies is an example of Craig's ambiguity. (I think.)

Craig draws the backbone of the plot from the horrifying and mostly unknown Burmese history between 1926 and 1965. Before British colonial rule, the Burmans for centuries had oppressed and terrorized the ethnic minorities like the Karen people, to which the main characters belong. The Pax Brittanica protected all minorities, earning their loyalty while infuriating those of the majority Burman. The Japanese become the new occupiers for a few years during the Second World War, the British return briefly and withdraw again, leaving their erstwhile allies to be "crucified and sawn in two" as Graham Greene states in the epigraph. Rid of the Japanese and British, the Burmans crank up the cruelty against minorities. But this story is about people caught in history, not a lesson in history. Two generations struggle with love, war, and imperialism from three different points of view. Most of the book consists of chapters with the alternating points of view of Benny and Khin narrated in the third-person limited, but Louisa contributes in the final third of the book and dominates the last chapters. Louisa feels deeply conflicted about her disapproving mother, who appears fixated on status. Ashamed of pretending and parading, Louisa (her name means “renowned warrior”)... marries Lyndon, a resistance general who was once her mother's lover (I think) and a disciple of her other lover, Saw Lay. Louisa dedicates her life to the struggle and accepts a mission to unify bickering Karen sects. When her husband disappears after peace-talks and is presumed dead, she awaits his return like the disciples did Christ because Lyndon had forewarned her not to believe rumors that he was dead. Perhaps he has gone to the Philippines for training by the CIA. Another ambiguity as Lyndon's fate is not made clear.

Craig crafts sentences without ostentation or didacticism. She is not especially lyrical, but she writes with a calm dignity that sounds gentle. My imagination designates the elegant speech patterns of Aung San Suu Kyi to serve as the soft-spoken narrative voice. The famous dissident Aung San Suu Kyi's father was Aung San, founder of modern Burma and a character in the story. Craig portrays the father in an unfavorable light, despite her reported admiration Aung San Suu Kyi, the "prime minister" of Myanmar (former Burma). Aung San Suu Kyi allegedly tolerates the ethnic cleansing of minority Muslims in Myanmar today, shocking many of her admirers. The name "Myanmar" is controversial because it belongs to the dominant majority Burmans and excludes Burmese minorities. "Burman" relates to the ethnic majority; "Burmese" relates to all the people who live in Burma, including majority Burmans and all the ethnic minorities. Craig uses the word Burma, not Myanmar. Craig avoids Lonely Planet tourism. I discovered much about Burma but obliquely and ambiguously. She intentionally creates uncertainty in each chapter which she may not clarify in the next. A second read would yield greater comprehension than the first, but I surrendered to the disorientation that the characters endured daily.

I seek words without borders to keep alive my dream of a world without borders. In these words, I saw eerie refractions of my current life events. Craigs turns her family's truth into fiction, which transmutes again into my truth. I needed to remember that a small act of courage against oppression can incite similar actions in others and sustain our bravery. Also, we win dignity in defeat when we resist despair and purge shame. People feel helpless against History's hatred. But then History reshapes itself around the stubbornness of individuals who refuse to submit. In defeat, victory exists in the calm acceptance of ourselves as an outsider, but outsiders need not be exiles. Sometimes we must lose all human love so that transcendence touches us more deeply and makes us feel loved--"as if there is only one of us."

My Rating:
Literary Fiction Category:
Objective 3 (good)
Subjective: 4 (very good)
World Literature: 4 (very good)
2017 Publication: 4 (very good)
Historical Fiction Genre: 3 (good)
Autobiographical fiction: 5 (it was amazing)

[Joshua Rigsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Longlisted for the National Book Award! Chances are that you, like myself, know next to nothing about Burmese history. Craig places this history within a fictionalized version of her mother's life story. The result is engrossing, terrifying, and amazing. You need to read this.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars - Fantastic book

I’ve finished this book and my heart is so heavy. Craig wrote a deeply poignant novel with tension on nearly every page.

The main reason I liked this book is because it’s about Burma. Burma (or Myanmar) has a complicated history and one that I kind of was aware of because I work with refugees. However, this book made the country’s history come alive in a different way. Craig has fictionalized the story of her mother and her grandparents. The story is both inspiriting and heartbreaking.

Women are at the heart of this story and they are a force to be reckoned with! Craig comes from a long line of bad*ss women. All I can say is read the book and then google her mother. Amazing.

As I read, my heart so much as some points the I actually had to stop reading… but I didn’t want to stop reading. It’s such a beautifully sad yet hopeful story.

Do yourself a favor and read about Burma through the lens of one family’s story.

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 2 out of 5]

2. Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig, read by the author

published: 2017
format: 13:21 Overdrive audiobook (~370 pages, hardcover is 355 pages)
acquired: library borrow
listened: Dec 11 – Jan 4
rating: **½

I enjoyed the first sections of this novel on audio as Craig, an actress who reads this herself, captures some interesting aspects of the mixed racial atmosphere of British Burma before, during and after WWII. Burma/Myanmar is a fascinating place with a remarkably complex history. And Craig has a great story to tell, based on the life of her mother and her mother's parents.

Craig's heritage is kind of complicated. She is American born. Her mother, Louisa Benson Craig, was from Burma and was half Jewish and half Karen. Her maternal grandfather, Saw Benson, was a descendant of a Jewish community within Burma. This community, and all the European and Indian communities are pretty much gone, after having been there for a couple hundred of years. Her maternal grandmother, Naw Chit Khin, was a variety of Karen. The Karen name encompasses melange of peoples in Burma who aren't all really related, but all are minorities in a country whose government is adverse to any non-Burmese. During the long British rule a community of Christian Karen worked closely with the British government, enjoyed a reprieve of racial subjection, and played an important role in clearing the Japanese from Burma during WWII. This was her mother's community.

Burma is a crazy place. When the Japanese invaded, they were supported by the Burmese independence movement and one of the first things these groups did under Japanese control was massacre non-Burmese minorities, including Karen. Once this caused problems for the Japanese it was stopped, but the damage was done and the mentality never left the Burmese political center.



So this is a quite a setting for a novel. And Louisa Benson (pictured above) really did win the Miss Burma award in 1956 (?), running as a Karen minority. The novel covers the trajectory of Craig's maternal grandparents and then her mother. It starts out really well, although there were a few writing oddities early on. For example, eyes can be expressive, but can they communicate long sentences with complex and precise grammar? Several times? From different characters?

But as the book progresses it becomes clear that the author is limited and the trend of this long novel stretches her abilities. She has some strengths. But she seems to really only have one style, roughly to make every single moment magical or emotionally moving in some way. That doesn't apply to this whole story. But she forces it. And when the story gets awkward, she tends to compensate by writing at length around this and avoiding the problem in the center (in this case maybe a family awkwardness). To me the book just fails. It gets silly and borderline dishonest (and makes the reader wonder how much license she really took with Burmese history).

Overall this is a good story that needed either a more experienced, or more talented writer, one could manage pacing over the long course, and change styles. It's still maybe worth reading because it is an amazing story within quite a wild real context. But it's not a very good novel.

[Samar Aljarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Miss Burma is exquisite from start to finish. I was on a plane when I finished reading it, it was one of my wonderful flight , thank you

[Tracy S · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Even though this is not a high rating, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about Burma. It was certainly not a waste of time!! But I almost never leave books half-read, and I was tempted to here. First, the good: I learned so much about Burma's history while reading this book. Several times, I would stop reading and feel compelled do some internet research to find out more about historical events or people. I really appreciated the focus on the Karen people and other topics I didn't know much about. In fact, the first third or so of the book was fascinating and I was truly enjoying it. But then it started to fall apart for me, and it became a chore to finish this book. The biggest problem was that I found the characters not only unlikeable, but really inconsistent--not that they were unpredictable, but that their actions often made no sense or were not adequately explained, so I started to lose interest in all of them. I never did get a good sense of what motivated any of them; even found it hard to picture any of them (and I live in Burma and am surrounded by Burmese, Karen and Indian people, so it's not that I am unfamiliar with the ethnicities described). The novel was paced so awkwardly at times. Many scenes dragged on for no discernible reason, while other periods (including periods that later seemed important to character development) were condensed to the point where I thought perhaps I had accidentally skipped a chapter. It was an ambitious novel that could have been truly great, but just didn't deliver, in my opinion.

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Burmas most beautiful feature was its multiplicity of peoples”(318)
Burma has been the setting, and the subject of a number of significant works of fiction. Richard Flanagan’s 2014 Booker winning Long Road to the Deep North and George Orwell’s Burmese Days notable among them. Burma, the emerging post World War 2 nation, is the star of Miss Burma. This is full on Civil War, as distinct from Britain centric PoW’s vs the Japanese.
The author, Charmaine Craig’s own life back story gives her novel the necessary credibility and authenticity. This is clearly written from the heart, and one whose character driven story line is secondary to the chronicle of minority groups in Burma, their suffering, and betrayal by the British.
As such it’s a work of fiction that at times demands of the reader a close attention to the shifting ethnic allegiances and jockeying for power in post colonial Burma.
I enjoyed the book for the most part, and the ending was particularly strong.
At the individual character level the central figures were rather unconvincing and too transparent. Miss Burma herself, Louisa, has the capacity to surprise, but her parents, Benny and Khin, have rather shallow personalities, and unsatisfactory endings, given the enormity, and importance of their situations.
Two writers immediately struck me as casting their influence over Craig’s writing. Graham Greene’s insidious western outsider (British or American) is apparent throughout. Craig chooses an extract from The Quiet American in her prologue. I also had flashback’s to Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing. Swap Burma for China, but the ruthless suppression of dissident activity, and of student massacre, and of family contradiction, is comparable. The reader is presented with serious lessons in history, and actually, at times, both novels come across as a bit dour.
History is populated with true accounts of minority groups (often persecuted), and the plight of the Karen’s in Burma is one to add to the list. The author’s summary of their ethnic characteristics; of supplication, reserve, lack of tactility, aloofness, avoidance of attention is both saddening and charming.
There’s a wistfulness that is reflected in numerous reflections on life’s meaning:
”One of man’s injunctions is to strive to live joyously”(46)
”For every day we are given, we owe that day our courage and vigorous”(239)

Miss Burma is long listed for the 2918 Bailey’s Women’s Prize. I would not be unhappy to see it progress further but feel that an important story, with the added urgency of the autobiographical elements, would have produced better literature in the hands of a different writer.

[Leah Bayer]

I hate this book enough to break my "no DNF if I am more than 20% of the way in" rule. There are some spoilers for the first 40% of the book (as far as I got before deleting this from my Kindle) below in my rant, so be warned.

I found almost everything about Miss Burma egregiously bad. Before I get into my (many) complaints, I'll talk about the positives. The setting is lush and wonderful, and you learn a lot about a part of Asian history I was mostly unaware of. Burma is a very underused setting, it history is brimming with conflict and intrigue that I wish more writers would take advantage of. The main themes (of how culture, ethnicity, and religion define us and can be changed) was fascinating. This has a lot of the makings of something I should love.

But... the writing. It's very stilted and odd, with an overwhelmingly liberal use of dashes. I'm talking 10+ per page in some sections. Oddly enough, it read like a badly translated novel to me, not something written in English.

The characters are what made me stop this, though. They're terrible. At the start both Benny and Khin, the couple at the core of this novel, seem interesting and complex, but Craig throws out any initial characterization at the drop of the hat to fit her narrative. They act so inconsistently from chapter to chapter the reader is likely to get whiplash. In one, Khin is a devoted wife and mother. In the next, she is cheating on her husband (who, let us note, has been kidnapped by Japanese soldiers just a few days ago and is being tortured) with his best friend. Khin then goes on to abandon her 4 malaria-ridden children to sell jewelry (for reasons not adequately explained) and cheats on Benny again! Just because a soldier thinks she is attractive! This makes no sense with the Khin of the first 20% of the book. It's like they are literally different people, for no explained reason.

The time jumps are made to cover this up. We'll go forward 3 or 4 years and the reader is just supposed to accept that Benny & Khin have "changed" in this time. Craig never tells us why, or how. We are just meant to accept that not only are they totally different people, but they've actually always been like this and her previous characterization is a lie. We get Khin & Benny's first real conversation twice: the first time we read this scene, Khin is hesitant but intrigued. The second time (both of these are from her perspective, mind you), she's actually in love with the translator and doesn't like Benny at all. I think Craig is trying to go for "you never really know anyone, don't trust what I tell you!" but it comes off less unreliable narrator and more poor writing.

I am SHOCKED this made it onto the National Book Award longlist over Lincoln in the Bardo.

[Wojciech Szot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kolejna książka, na której lekturę was namawiam, za co z góry przepraszam, ale jakoś tak się złożyło, że ostatnio czytam tylko dobre książki.

Niech was nie zwiedzie okładka tej książki - za tropikalną roślinnością skrywa się wielka powieść historyczna, pełna emocji, skomplikowanych wyborów, zaskakujących postaci, do tego bardzo sprawnie napisana. I choć “Miss Birmy” (tłum. Jolanta Kozak) momentami zbyt łzawo traktuje romansowe wątki, to jest lekturą, na którą zdecydowanie warto poświęcić kilka wieczorów.

Główną zaletą “Miss Birmy”, jeśli tak można o książce napisać, jest główny wątek fabularny oparty na prawdziwych wydarzeniach z historii Birmy, dzisiaj Myanmaru. Jest on na tyle nieprawdopodobny, że autorka zamieściła na końcu powieści esej autobiograficzny, w którym opowiada o życiu swoich rodziców, będących pierwowzorami głównych bohaterów “Miss Birmy”. I to jest jedna z tych historii, o których mówimy "filmowe".

Pochodząca z ludu Karenów Khin tuż przed wybuchem II wojny światowej przyjeżdża do Akyab, ponad stutysięcznego miasta w zachodniej Birmie, gdzie pracuje jako pomoc domowa. Jej pracodawca, zamożny sędzia, zatrudnia - jak pisze Craig - “wyłącznie ludzi własnej prześladowanej rasy”. Jak to bywa w takich historiach Khin poznaje Benny’ego, młodzi biorą ślub i byłby to wojenny romans, jakich zbyt dużo, a jednak nie jest. Benny bowiem jest Żydem, co w kraju, w którym wszyscy zwracają uwagę na etniczne pochodzenie rozmówcy, budzi pewne zdziwienie. Nie wiadomo w pełni, czy “biały-Hindus” jak mówi się o Bennym to dobrze, czy źle - biali są tak nienawidzeni jak szanowani, a Hindusi są pariasami, których przegania się niczym natrętne muchy w upalny dzień. Szczęście Khin i Benny’ego - to akurat zgodne z tradycją powieści obyczajowo-historycznej - nie potrwa za długo. Birma zostaje wciągnięta w działania wojenne, nadciągają Japończycy i historia się komplikuje. Dodajmy do tego fakt, że Benny jest zamożny, a już na pewno przedsiębiorczy. I waleczny. Do czasu aż w niepodległej już ojczyźnie trafi do więzienia, a później wieloletniego aresztu domowego.

Jak ja nie lubię streszczania treści książki. A tu trzeba wam powiedzieć, że będzie to powieść o historii Birmy, kraju, w którym żyje ponad 140 grup etnicznych i narodów, a dwie największe z nich - Bamarowie i Karenowie nie żyli w zgodzie i mieli inne pomysły na niepodległość i przyszłą integrację rozwarstwionego i podzielonego państwa. Craig w “Miss Birma” przy okazji opowieści o życiu Khin i Benny’ego oraz ich potomstwa, bardzo sprawnie przeprowadza czytelnika przez meandry birmańskiej (mianmarskiej) historii, akcentując najważniejsze wydarzenia, podkreślając podziały, pokazując jak walka światowych mocarstw - Chin, Stanów i ZSRR odbijała się na losie mieszkańców Birmy. Autorka robi to równie sprawnie, co najlepsi reportażyści i za to jej chwała.

Jednak głównym tematem ksiązki jest los kobiet w społeczeństwie, które wyznaje klasowe podziały, kobiet, które z jednej strony są waleczne i potrafią zawalczyć o szczęście rodziny, z drugiej uległe i oddane mężczyznom, z którymi są związane. I to nie zawsze jest opowieść o patriarchacie. Po latach toksycznego związku z Bennym, Thin powie swojej córce, że wytrzymała z nim z wdzięczności za to, że całe życie pomagał jej ludowi w walce o wolność i równe prawa w birmańskim społeczeństwie. Książka o przemocy wobec kobiet, ale też kobietach, które nienawidzą innych kobiet, które każdą kobietę traktują jako rywalkę. Co ciekawe Craig pokazuje też w pewnym stopniu moralną indyferentność swoich bohaterek - o ile potrafią zarzucać (i słusznie) wiarołomstwo swoim partnerom, tak swoje zdrady umniejszają, czy zdają się o nich nie pamiętać. Wielowymiarowość życia ukazana przez autorkę zasługuje na szacunek.

Postawiłem już kilka tysięcy znaków w tym tekście, a jeszcze ani słowa nie napisałem o tytułowej “miss Birmy”. To Luiza, córka Thin i Benny’ego, którą matka wysyła na wybory, by zbliżyć się do reżimu. Luiza jest oszałamiająco pięknym dzieckiem, a jako córka Żyda i Karenki niesie też przesłanie, które jest potrzebne w niepodległej już i próbującej odbudować wieloetniczną zgodę Birmie. Z łatwością zdobywa koronę miss, a jej wizerunek już za chwilę będzie znał każdy mieszkaniec kraju. Jak wykorzysta sukces Luiza? Co przeszły kobiety z tej rodziny w czasie tułaczki podczas wojny domowej? I co sprawia, że z dnia na dzień porzuca rodzinę i wychodzi za nieprzewidywalnego lokalnego wataszkę? To historia przemiany - z kobiety-lalki po ludową przywódczynię. Niezwykle wciągająca.

Jest oczywiście “Miss Birmy” momentami przewidywalną opowieścią o upadku bogatych, łatwym wzbogaceniu się biednych, momentami ckliwa i romantyczna, ale “Wojna i pokój” też ma mielizny. A tak bardziej na poważnie - udało się Craig napisać coś niezwykle trudnego - wielką powieść historyczną, w której dzieje opowiadane są z kobiecej perspektywy. Do tego dochodzi naprawdę niesamowicie interesująca historia samej Birmy i jej wewnętrznych konfliktów. Zachęcam do udania się w podróż z Charmaine Craig, bo myślę, że na długie godziny znajdą się Państwo w świecie o którym wciąż wiemy za mało.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be a book about Burma, but it mirrors the history of other countries of the twentieth century as well. Start with a region, populated by different clans or tribes. Have that region colonized and introduced to central government by—let’s say the British—and have that colonizer define the borders of that region without considering the different loyalties/religions of the native people. Then have that region invaded by the Japanese during WWII in its war of conquest. The more populous tribe (the Burmans in the case of Burma) sides with Japan, and a minority group (the Karen) side with the British. After the conclusion of hostilities, the country’s dominant group declares that they want unity with all ethnic groups; the British (eager to dispense with their colonial responsibilities) say ‘Yea!’ and leave. And once they are gone, the dominant tribe proves that they have NO interest in unity and proceed to impose various forms of persecution on the minority group. Sound familiar?
Craig has layered the history of her own family over Burma’s through the 1960s. Both of her grandparents were members of minority groups; her grandfather Benny was a Burmese-Jew and her mother, Khin, was a member of the Karen group. Benny fell in love with Khin’s beauty, but the two of them struggled to communicate linguistically and culturally. Again, this inability to communicate fully mirrors the inability of Burma’s ethnic groups to successfully work together. Plus, Benny is periodically arrested—once by the Japanese and at various times by the ruling Burmans. Some of those arrests resulted in severe torture. How does one communicate that experience and how it has changed them—when discussing even simple things is a struggle? Fortunately, Benny is a born fighter—even a feared pugilist in his youth.
Louisa, Benny’s and Khin’s oldest daughter, is an esteemed beauty and is encouraged to enter the Miss Burma contest in order to curry favor with Burmese political leaders. Ironically, she does win and becomes a national sensation. But her interactions with the upper echelons of Burmese society make her want to reject that part of her life and align with the Karen rebels. It is a dangerous path for her to follow—there is no black-and-white, rather duplicity and secrets. Even the CIA’s subtle hand is at work. Recommend.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This astounding novel was such a worthwhile read. All I knew of Burma, now called Myanmar, was that in recent years it has been ruled by an oppressive military junta, closed off from the world. My clearest impression was of the time in 2004 when the country refused any foreign aid after the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Just the other day they were in the news as the genocide of minorities continues there.

So what happened in that poor tortured country? Charmaine Craig is the daughter of Louisa Benson, who rose to fame in Burma and the world when she began winning beauty contests and eventually became a contestant for the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant. This novel is the story of the author's mother and her grandparents, but it is also a history of Burma from WWII onward.

I call the book astounding because of the way it entwines the personal lives of her family with the tumultuous political upheavals of their country. It covers colonial abuse and then neglect by the British Empire, bitter enmity between ethnic groups as well as intermarriage between the groups, and the horrific human rights abuses that have gone on. The incredible bravery and resistance of the author's mother and grandmother and their fight for freedom as members of the Karen people, the most despised minority of Burma, makes that political history come alive.

It is a lot to take in. Love between husband and wife, parents and children, siblings, is almost impossible to maintain in such situations. The suffering of these people challenged my imagination. The question is, aside from the right and need for people to tell their stories, do you want to read and know about it if you are one of the more privileged members of the human race. As a reader, that is your choice and you have the right to choose.

At this point in history it often seems that mankind will never change. The powerful will always suppress the weak and nearly always win. The news will either upset or soothe, depending on the outlets we choose to read. Reading historical novels like this, especially when based on real people, inspires me. Sometimes the apparent weak are stronger than it appears and that urge for freedom and justice does have an impact.

[Faith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a history lesson shoehorned into the form of a novel. I didn't know anything about the history of Burma and wanted to learn but perhaps I would have liked this book more if it showed me the history through the lives of characters rather than lecturing about it. I wasn't enjoying this book so I abandoned it. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Tonstant Weader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss Burma is an engrossing and beautiful piece of literary fiction. It is more than that, though. It is the story of author Charmaine Craig's mother and grandparents, people cursed to live in interesting times. Benny and Khin, her grandparents, are the early focus of the story. He was an Indian-Portuguese Jew born in Rangoon, but raised in Calcutta. She was Karen, one of the repressed ethnic minorities of Burma. He had just returned to Burma when he saw her at a distance, fell in love, and asked to marry her. She agreed, perhaps out of a desire to escape the resentment of her family. They did not speak each other's language, but they found in each other an escape from loneliness and they found love. However, the habit of not communicating began and in time it overshadowed their marriage.

Their marriage and the lives of their children was contoured by World War II, the Japanese invasion, independence and the years of ethnic conflict and military dictatorship that has gripped Burma ever since. It was only in 2015 that a democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League for Democracy took power and still the military continues to repress minorities, in particular the Muslim Rohingya. Elections just this month show that peace is fragile.

This is not a history of Burma, it is the story of Benny and Khin and their daughter Louisa who won Miss Burma 1956 and 1958, the novel opening with her victory. This is very much a story about trust, lack of trust, misplaced trust, trusting the wrong people and not trusting those you love. Again and again, Benny, Khin, and Louisa have to make decisions to trust or not to trust. Not always wisely. Through war, ethnic cleansing, prison, and separation, this story is mainly about love, family and marital love, love as a prison and love as liberation. There is a lot of wisdom here.

Miss Burma is a good book, engrossing and fascinating even before I realized it was about real people. I liked both Khin and Benny a lot, though sometimes I wanted someone to lock them in a room together and not let them out until they talked. Not talking was their problem and with not talking came distrust. Benny was often choosing the worst interpretation, making the cruelest judgments, a reflection of his own shame at what was done to him as a prisoner of the Japanese. If only they would have talked to each other instead of hiding behind shame.

Louisa, too, has to make choices about trust. Perhaps from watching her parents, she made wiser choices. The book ends before the real life Miss Burma moves into an entirely new chapter of her life–leading the Karen resistance. It makes me suspect and hope there will be a sequel.

Craig has tremendous sensitivity to the complex question of why two people can love each other and utterly fail each other. It's a complex question and one answered well, if painfully by Miss Burma.

Miss Burma will be released May 2nd. I received a e-galley from the publisher through Edelweiss.

★★★★
http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpres...

[Beatrix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss Birma beschrijft de turbulente historie van het interne en etnische conflict in Birma (nu Myanmar), door de ogen van Benny en Khin. Dit conflict ontstond kort na de onafhankelijkheid in 1948 en wordt gezien als 's werelds langstlopende burgeroorlog. .
Na zijn studie vertrekt de Joodse Benny naar Rangoon die op dat moment in handen is van het Britse rijk. Hier ontmoet hij Khin, die tot de Karen - een lang vervolgde etnische minderheid - behoort. Wanneer de Tweede Wereldoorlog uitbreekt slaan Benny en Khin op de vlucht om aan de Japanse bezetting te ontkomen.

'Miss Birma' is een meeslepend verhaal met sprankelende personages die de schokkende geschiedenis van Birma tot leven brengt. Je voelt de angst, de wanhoop, de liefde en het gevoel van ontheemding van de personages, en tegelijkertijd weet je als lezer ook dat de dreiging nog lang niet geweken is. Het schrijnt, de gebeurtenissen zijn soms bijna te gruwelijk om verder te lezen, maar tegelijkertijd betrap je jezelf erop dat je al zo aan de personages gehecht bent geraakt dat je toch steeds wilt weten hoe het verder gaat.

Deze roman is grotendeels gebaseerd op de ervaringen van Craigs familie, en dit voelde ik als lezer ook terug. Je merkt het aan de intieme scènes vol kleine details, die in groot contrast staan met haar observaties en toelichting van de politieke gebeurtenissen op meta- en macroniveau. Juist deze combinatie maakte voor mij dat ik én mee kon voelen met het grotere leed én heel erg begaan was met het lot van de personages. 'Miss Birma' is een beetje een slow burner, maar zodra je er eenmaal zit krijg je er een prachtig verhaal voor terug. Als je vorig jaar genoten hebt van Pachinko, dan is dit je volgende boek! ❤️🌿

[ns510reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

Not sure how to rate this. On the one hand, I liked this a lot, more than I thought I might. I do like a good multi-generational sweeping epic that teaches me something about a culture or piece of history I hadn’t been aware of, so that probably helped, even though I wasn’t completely in the mood for one. It was interesting to learn about Burma’s history, and the awful effects of colonialism (there you go again! Grr) on the country, paving the path towards civil war. It’s reminiscent of other stories about countries that have suffered at the hands of colonialism, e.g. Midnight’s Children.

It’s harrowing to read about ethnic minorities like the Karens being persecuted and killed, in what amounts to genocide. Throughout the book, I was feeling quite angry and sad that despite everything that had happened in Burma, the same thing is repeating itself with the Rohingya minority. It’s disgusting, to say the least. The book also made me aware of the shady history surrounding the new name for the country. I used to not think twice about calling it Myanmar, but now, I just don’t know. It’s definitely something like have to expand my reading on at some stage.

The only thing that stopped me from giving it a higher rating was the clunky writing. It reminded me of my experience reading Do Not Say We Have Nothing; the writing was good, but dense and required effort. I think it’s because the story is so personal to the author, based on the actual life of her mother and grandparents. It’s fascinating to think that this is all pretty much true. So somewhere along the way, it has probably been overwritten into something that’s a cross between a novel and a memoir - like a dramatised version of real life events.

Still did enjoy this one, and glad to have read it.

[Carol Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book thoroughly, primarily because I have always wanted to learn more about Burma. I took some classes about Southeast Asia in college, but the information that was then available was scanty.

This book is fiction, but I feel sure that it is historically accurate. It is written from the perspective of a member of the Karen group, one of Myanmar's most numerous peoples. The author points out that adoption of the name "Myanmar" is one of the Burman people's ways of claiming the nation as the property of their people alone. Burmans, Craig writes, are about half of Burma's people, but they had oppressed the other peoples so cruelly for centuries that the other groups were relieved when the British took over. Karens joined the British civil service and military.

During World War II, Aung San (the father of Aung San Suu Kyi) opposed the British to such a degree that he sided with the Japanese. Together, the Japanese and his independence army terrorized nonBurmans. The Karens and other peoples who supported the British were horrified when, after the war, the British handed the country to Aung San's party without any guarantee of rights for the other peoples living in the country. The new government quickly moved to oppress them.

This book tells the story of one family with a Jewish father, a Karen mother, and three children. It especially focuses on the eldest daughter, Louisa, whose parents decide that she should enter the Miss Burma contest. It's a well-told story of terrible suffering and misunderstanding. I found it engrossing.

[Judith E · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 5 star account of the complex history of the Karen ethnic group in Burma and a heart felt portrayal of the 'chronically oppressed' Karen people. It reveals their discrimination and powerlessness in a Burma which has forced them to be displaced numerous times, to being tortured during various wars, and betrayed by their own people.

The history is told by characters who were relatives of the author. We follow them during the time of British rule, through WWII, during Aung San's regime and the torture and massacre of Karens, through the struggling creation of a new Burma and the influences of the CIA and communists. Their physical struggles force them to compromise their personal and moral convictions at great cost.

But, it is less than a 3 star account of the characters. Their portrayals and their motivations are baffling. The relationship between the author's grandparents, their relationships with close friends, their infidelities, and their inability to communicate leaves many unanswered questions. The reason for their choices are vague and confusing. The author's note is the most clarifying section and reveals the bravery and courage her mother displayed before and after she left Burma.

Reluctantly rounded up from 3.5 because it teaches us that the treatment of the Karen population is a lesson we do not want to repeat.

[Ollie Skyba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Всего пару лет, как я образовываю себя в истории Азиатского континента через художественные книги, и невзирая на мою отвагу, каждая из них дается непросто, буквально бьет под дых. Особенности цивилизации, культуры, подтекста - не знаю, что играет решающую роль, но я напитываюсь не только знаниями об Индокитае, бесконечных войнах и переворотах в регионе, геноциде одних народов и диктатуре других, но и всей палитрой эмоций - от любопытства и недоумения, до страха, отвращения, горечи, боли.

Читать о 1930-60х в Бирме - местами резать по-живому, не знать, куда спрятаться от чрезмерно ярких деталей, насилия и страданий, противостояния внутренним и внешним врагам,.. но и видеть - любовь, надежду, желание выжить, спасти детей, бороться за будущее.

Чармейн Крейг положила в основу романа историю своих предков, бабушки-каренки и деда-еврея, а ее мама дважды становилась мисс Бирма (теперь - Мьянма), но - к счастью, у ее реальной жизни все-таки сложился иной сценарий.

[Khai Jian (KJ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the face of these terrible wars abroad, when our very peace is threatened, we must find a way to rejoice in our circumstances. We must find a way to do more than endure."

Miss Burma sets in Burma from the 1920s to 1960s whereby historical events over the course of World War II and the Japanese invasion were referenced in the story. With this backdrop in mind, we follow the story of a few main characters: Benny (a Jew born in Burma and was previously living in Calcutta before coming back to Rangoon), Khin (Benny's wife and a Karen, i.e. a member of an indigenous people of Burma), Louisa (the eldest daughter of Benny and Khin, whereby she was crowned "Miss Burma" in 1965 for political reasons). What is fascinating here is the cultural references to the Karen ethnicity. Due to their conciliatory nature, the Karen people were constantly oppressed by Burmans and exploited for the political agenda of the Burmans, British and Japanese. This story essentially highlighted the Karen uprising, the Karen retaliation against Aung San's army, and ultimately the cease-fire between Karen and Burmans. Discussions on huge concepts such as democracy, communism, nationalism, tribalism, and "burmanization" were introduced. Miss Burma is an example of literature that offers a different perspective from the mainstream views towards Burmese history. For instance, Aung San, who was painted as the Father of the Nation of modern-day Myanmar, is not depicted as the national hero in this story.

I was made to understand that Louisa's character is actually written based on the author's mother i.e. Louisa Benson Craig. But one of the shortcomings of this story is that Louisa's voice was only given prominence from the second half of the story. Further, there are obvious traces of info-dumping here and the author's sentence structure is too convoluted to me. What is even confusing to me is the romantic relationship between the characters. That being said, this is still an eye-opening reading experience and it's a 4/5 star rating to me. Miss Burma showcased the fact that in war and politics, there are no permanent enemies and friends. Loyalty, trust, and faithfulness are of no value.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

RATW - Burma/Myanmar

Burma/Myanmar is a country I know little about and this book seems a really good education. As background to a family story, it takes us through the history of a people of struggling to survive invasions by oppressors without and within their country. Various ethnic groups have been targeted for elimination throughout the country’s history, the latest being as recently as 2021 when the military discounted the elected leadership and took control of ruling the country.

The summary on the inside cover says the author based this novel on the lives of her mother and grandparents. It begins with Burmese independence from British colonial rule and continues through to the 1960s when it became a socialist state. The country and its various factions are as much a character in this story as are Benny, Khin and Louisa.

A mesmerizing and emotional story.

There is a lot of online information on Burma and its people and its fraught history throughout the years.

[Noelle Gooding · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has sat unopened on my bookshelf for almost five years now and I am very glad I finally got around to it.