Burma: Rivers of Flavor

Aye, Nan San San, trans. Ma Thanegi. Cooking with Love Myanmar Style. Yangon: Seikku Cho Cho, n.d.

Callahan, Mary P. Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003.
A remarkable analysis of the origins of Burma today, and especially of the lead-up to the 1962 military coup, that describes how the army transformed itself into a powerful force during the 1950s and also how it viewed itself as a necessary stabilizing force.

Chutintaranond, Sunait, and Chris Baker, eds. Recalling Local Pasts: Autonomous History in Southeast Asia. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 2002.
A collection of essays that look at local history rather than central-authority-centered history, including three on places in Burma: Mrauk U, the Tenasserim coast, and Pegu.

Connelly, Karen. The Lizard Cage. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2005.
A novel set in Rangoon’s Insein Prison; compelling, heart-wrenching, and beautifully written.

_____. Burmese Lessons. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2009.
A poetic memoir of the author’s love affair with Burma, and her time in the refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border, that gives a picture of the democracy movement from outside the country, as well as a feeling for life in the refugee camps and among the opposition forces along the Thai border in the mid-1990s.

Danell, Eric, Anna Kiss, and Martina Stohrova. Dokmai Garden’s Guide to Fruits and Vegetables in Southeast Asian Markets. Bangkok: White Lotus, 2011.

Davidson, Alan. The Penguin Companion to Food. London: Penguin, 2002.

Delisle, Guy. Burma Chronicles. Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly, 2008.
A cartoonist who lived in Burma for two years with his wife (who was working there for Médecins sans Frontières) and their baby uses the graphic nonfiction format to detail daily life as he saw it, simplistically but with humor and appreciation.

Elliott, Patricia. The White Umbrella. Bangkok: Post Books, 1999.
A story of modern Burma, told through the eyes of a major player, the Sao (wife of the Prince) of Yawnghwe, on Inle Lake. Her husband, the Saobha Prince Shwe Thaik, was the first president of Burma. It is a fascinating glimpse into the hopes and frustrations and heartbreak of the 1945 to 1962 period, which ended in the military coup (and the disappearance and death of the Shan princes). In that coup, the Sao’s husband was arrested and killed; one son was also shot. She escaped with her remaining children and then led a Shan insurgent army in the hills of northern Thailand.

Fetherling, George. Three Pagodas Pass: A Roundabout Journey to Burma. Bangkok: Asia Books, 2003.
A sympathetic traveler’s account.

Fielding-Hall, Harold. The Soul of a People. 1898. Reprint, Bangkok: White Orchid, 1995.
An attempt to understand and communicate what Buddhism means to the Burmese people—not what the texts say, but how it is seen and lived on the ground. Amazingly empathetic for the time.

_____. Thibaw’s Queen. 1907. Available at www.openlibrary.org.
An account of the court before the arrival of the British, starting with King Mindon, the great mid-nineteenth-century king of Burma, who died in 1878 and was succeeded by King Thibaw.

Fink, Christina. Living Silence in Burma: Surviving Under Military Rule, 2nd ed. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 2009.
An extremely clear and useful introduction to Burma’s recent history.

Ghosh, Amitav. The Glass Palace. New York: Random House, 2001.
A sweeping historical novel that opens in Mandalay in 1885 and ends in Burma in the 1990s; a great introduction to the colonial and modern eras.

Grabowsky, Volker, and Andrew Turon. The Gold and Silver Road of Trade and Friendship: The McLeod and Richardson Diplomatic Missions to Tai States in 1837. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 2003.

Hallett, Holt S. A Thousand Miles on an Elephant in the Shan States. 1890. Reprint, Bangkok: White Lotus, 2000.
An account of an Englishman’s 1876 journey in search of a good route for a railway to connect northern Thailand with Burma’s coastal ports, to enable more profitable trade and the exploitation of teak.

Halliday, Robert. The Mons of Burma and Thailand. 2 vols. Bangkok: White Lotus, 2000.
Volume 1, The Talaings, is an account of Mon culture and history, based on studies by the author in the first half of the twentieth century. (The Mon were then referred to as Talaing.) Volume 2, Selected Articles, serves as a valuable reminder—given the pressures for assimilation of Mons in Burma—of the age of Mon culture.

Heiss, Mary Lou, and Robert J. Heiss. The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide. Berkeley, Calif.: Ten Speed Press, 2007.

Howard, Michael C. Textiles of the Highland Peoples of Burma. Vol. 1, The Naga, Chin, Jingpho, and Other Baric-speaking Groups. Bangkok: White Lotus, 2005.
Color photographs and explanations of the complex textile culture and subcultures of the peoples of the northern and northwestern mountains of Burma.

Hutton, Wendy. Tropical Herbs & Spices of Thailand. Bangkok: Asia Books, 1997.

_____. Tropical Vegetables of Thailand. Bangkok: Asia Books, 1997.

Khaing, Mi Mi. Cook and Entertain the Burmese Way. Rangoon: Mayawaddy Press, n.d.

Khoo Thwe, Pascal. From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey. London: HarperCollins, 2002.
The memoir of a young Padaung (Kayan) man who, with the help of an English academic whom he meets by chance, flees Burma, makes it to Great Britain, and graduates from Cambridge.

Kingdon-Ward, Frank. Burma’s Icy Mountains. 1949. Reprint, Bangkok: Orchard Press, 2006.
A 1937 botanical expedition to northern Burma that starts in Myitkyina and heads into the mountains and valleys north of the confluence of the two tributaries that come together to form the Irrawaddy River.

_____. Return to the Irrawaddy. 1956. Reprint, Bangkok: Asia Books, 2004.
This account of another of Kingdon-Ward’s botanical trips is full of colorful local detail.

Larkin, Emma. Finding George Orwell in Burma. New York: Penguin, 2005.
A graceful nonfiction exploration of life in present-day Burma. The author connects colonial rule and Orwell’s change in attitude while he was in Burma in the 1920s (as he became a fierce critic of the British Empire) with his later writings against totalitarianism in the novels 1984 and Animal Farm. She finds that the world he portrays in 1984 is uncannily like the situation under the Burmese government of the 1990s and the early years of the next decade.

_____. Everything Is Broken: A Tale of Catastrophe in Burma. New York: Penguin, 2010.
A report of the destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, the failure of the Burmese government to help alleviate people’s suffering, the efforts of individuals on the ground, and the ongoing consequences.

Lewis, Norman. Golden Earth: Travels in Burma. 1952. Reprint, London: Eland, 2003.
This beautifully written tale of travels in early postwar Burma gives a glimpse of the charm of the country and its people for foreigners, as the author journeys south to Tenasserim and then north into the Shan States and to Myitkyina.

Lintner, Bertil. Land of Jade: A Journey Through Insurgent Burma. Bangkok: White Orchid, 1996.
A noted journalist’s story about an extraordinary illegal trip he and his partner (a Shan woman from Burma) and their baby made across the northern part of Burma in the mid-1980s. They started in India’s Nagaland and ended in China’s Yunnan province about eighteen months later. It’s a saga that along the way gives a detailed history of the independence movements in Burma from 1948 to the mid-1980s and also an idea of the countryside and way of life of people in the hills.

_____. Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency Since 1948. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 1999.
A useful review of recent border history and politics.

MacGregor, John. Through the Buffer State: Travels in Borneo, Siam, Cambodia, Malaya and Burma. 1896. Reprint, Bangkok: White Lotus, 1994.
A Scot’s travels through the outlying parts of the British Empire and into Thailand and Cambodia too.

Maclean, Rory. Under the Dragon: Travels in a Betrayed Land. London: Flamingo, 1999.
A thoughtful and creative memoir of travels in Burma in the late 1990s that manages to connect emotionally with the human landscape of the counry at its most repressive and painful.

Malcom, Howard. Travels in the Burman Empire. 1840. Reprint, Bangkok: Ava House, 1997.
An account of the travels of an American Baptist missionary in 1836, in Arakan (Rakhine) and central Burma, noting customs and geography and the possibilities for missionary work.

Mannin, Ethel. Land of the Crested Lion: A Journey Through Modern Burma. London: Jarrolds, 1955.
A postindependence account of travels in Burma.

Maugham, W. Somerset. The Gentleman in the Parlour. 1930. Reprint, Bangkok: White Orchid, 1995.
In 1922, Maugham traveled on horseback from Taunggyi, near Inle Lake in Shan State, all the way east to Kengtung, then an independent Shan kingdom. It took him more than two months. His book about the journey is a straight travel memoir that gives a rare glimpse of the region that lies east of the Salween River in Shan State.

Mesher, Gene. Burmese for Beginners. Bangkok: Paiboon, 2005.

Milne, Leslie. Shans at Home. 1910. Reprint, Bangkok: White Lotus, 2001.
Among my favorites, written by an Englishwoman who lived in two different Shan kingdoms, Hsipaw and Namshan, for a total of eighteen months in 1910–11. Milne was a clear-eyed, appreciative observer of customs and culture, and the book includes line drawings as well as black-and-white photographs.

_____. The Home of an Eastern Clan: A Study of the Palaungs of the Shan States. 1924. Reprint, Bangkok: White Lotus, 2004.
Like Milne’s Shan book, a closely observed description, and an appreciative one, of the Palaung people.

Mirante, Edith T. Burmese Looking Glass: A Human Rights Adventure and a Jungle Revolution. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993.
An American artist who got bitten by the injustices in Burma travels with rebel forces into Shan State and Karen State; with the Mons all the way to the coast in Tenasserim; and then with the Kachin in the north. She gives detailed useful background on all the insurgency struggles.

_____. Down the Rat Hole: Adventures Underground on Burma’s Frontiers. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2005.
In her second book, Mirante travels into Burmese territory from China’s Yunnan and from Manipur in India. She also goes to Bangladesh to meet and learn about Rakhine and Rohingya resistance. As in her earlier book, she is impassioned, wanting revolution. She also sees the fragmentation and weakness of the opposition, as well as the valor.

MoMo and BoBo’s Kitchen: A Burmese Cookbook. Mae Sot, Thailand: Borderline, 2010.
A small book of recipes contributed by refugees living on the Thai–Burma border and published there.

Myint-U, Thant. The River of Lost Footsteps. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2006.
A modern retelling of Burma’s history, from the perspective of an insider who is also a historian with an international perspective. Thant gives us privileged access to the point of view of the people on the ground; it’s refreshing to get a Burma-centric perspective rather than that of a colonial writer.

_____. Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2011.

Orwell, George. Burmese Days. 1934. Reprint, New York: Mariner, 1974.
This early novel draws on Orwell’s experiences as a colonial officer in towns all over Burma (it’s set in a place very like the small town of Katha, on the Irrawaddy River between Mandalay and Myitkyina, where he was posted for a time). It gives a sense of the brutality of British rule and the lack of respect the British had for Burmese people and culture.

Phan, Zoya, and Damien Lewis. Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West. London: Simon & Schuster, 2009.
A young Karen woman who is now a spokeperson for the pro-democracy movement, gives a detailed picture of her life in a Karen village, and then of the horrors of flight from the Burmese army as it overran Karen-held territory in the mid-1990s. She describes her life in the camps along the Thai border and her eventual success in getting access to education and legal status in England.

Po, San C. Burma and the Karens. 1928. Reprint, Bangkok: White Lotus, 2001.
An account of Karen history and the relations between Burma and the Karen, from a Karen scholar writing long before independence.

Reid, Robert, Joe Bindloss, and Stuart Butler. Lonely Planet Myanmar (Burma), 11th ed. Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet, 2009.

Robert, Claudia Saw Lwin, Wendy Hutton, San Lwin, and Win Pe. The Food of Myanmar: Authentic Recipes from the Land of the Golden Pagodas. Hong Kong: Periplus, 1999.

Sargent, Inge. Twilight over Burma: My Life as a Shan Princess. With a foreword by Bertil Lintner. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994.
The story of a foreigner who married a Shan prince and then was forced to flee the country.

Southeast Asia Neighbors Press. 28 Colourful Ethnic Recipes from Burma. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Southeast Asia Neighbors Press, 2008.

Suu Kyi, Aung San, and Fergal Keane. Letters from Burma. New York: Penguin, 2010.
A reissue with new foreword by Fergal Keane of a collection of letters by the Nobel Laureate that ran as articles in a Japanese newspaper in the mid-1990s. Gives a clear sense of Burmese culture and the aspirations of the pro-democracy movement under the repressive authoritarian regime of the time.

Taik, Aung Aung. The Best of Burmese Cooking. San Francisco: Chronicle, 1993.

Thanegi, Ma. An Introduction to Myanmar Cuisine. Rangoon: U Kyaw Hin, 2004.

_____. Defiled on the Ayeyarwaddy: One Woman’s Mid-Life Travel Adventures on Myanmar’s Great River. San Francisco: Things Asian, 2010.

_____. The Native Tourist: In Search of Turtle Eggs. Rangoon: Swiftwinds, 2000.
Ma Thanegi is an artist and writer with a special interest in and knowledge of food who lives in Rangoon. Her cookbook is reliable and very good. Her two books of travel in Burma are nuanced and entertaining introductions to Burmese culture, with small illuminating asides and lively line drawings.

Vaughan, J. G., and C. A. Geissler. The New Oxford Book of Food Plants, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Williams, Lt.-Col. J. D. Elephant Bill. 1952. Reprint, London: Long Riders’ Guild Press, 2001.
This engaging memoir tells the story of a young man from Britain who worked in the Burma Company’s logging camps after the First World War, and then was in charge of the elephants as the British retreated to India after the Japanese conquered Burma in 1942. The day-to-day realities and relationships in the logging camps and the extraordinary role played by elephants and their oozies (handlers) during the war makes a fascinating read.

Win, Daw Ena. Myanmar Cook Book. 1999, n.p.

Younghusband, G. J. The Trans-Salwin Shan State of Kiang Tung. 1888. Edited and with an introduction by David K. Wyatt. Reprint, Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, 2005.
An explorer’s travels through the Eastern Shan states shortly after the British conquest of Mandalay. Younghusband is best known for his later expedition (really an invasion) into Tibet in 1903–1904.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

WEB SITES AND ARTICLES