Letters from Burma - an unforgettable collection from the Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi
In these astonishing letters, Aung San Suu Kyi reaches out beyond Burma's borders to paint for her readers a vivid and poignant picture of her native land.
Here she celebrates the courageous army officers, academics, actors and everyday people who have supported the National League for Democracy, often at great risk to their own lives. She reveals the impact of political decisions on the people of Burma, from the terrible cost to the children of imprisoned dissidents - allowed to see their parents for only fifteen minutes every fortnight - to the effect of inflation on the national diet and of state repression on traditions of hospitality. She also evokes the beauty of the country's seasons and scenery, customs and festivities that remain so close to her heart.
Through these remarkable letters, the reader catches a glimpse of exactly what is at stake as Suu Kyi fights on for freedom in Burma, and of the love for her homeland that sustains her non-violent battle.
Includes an introduction from Fergal Keane
'Aung San Suu Kyi has become a global symbol of peaceful resistance, courage and apparently endless endurance'
Guardian 'A real hero in an age of phony phone-in celebrity, which hands out that title freely to the most spoiled and underqualified' Bono,
Time Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of Burma's National League for Democracy. She was placed under house arrest in Rangoon in 1989, where she remained for almost 15 of the 21 years until her release in 2010, becoming one of the world's most prominent political prisoners. She is also the author of the collection of writings
Freedom from Fear.
Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader if the struggle for human rights and democracy in Burma. Born in 1945 as the daughter of Burma's national hero Aung San she was two years old when he was assasinated, just before Burma gained the independence to which he has dedicated his life. After receiving her education in Rangoon, Delhi, and at Oxford University, Aung San Suu Kyi then worked for the United Nations in New York and Bhutan. For most of the following twenty years, she was occupied raising a familty in England (her husband is British), before returning to Burma in 1988 to care for her dying mother. Her return coincided with the outbreak of a spontaneous revolt against 26 years of political repression and economic decline. Aung San Suu Kyi quickly emerged as the most effective and articulate leader of the movement, and the party she founded went on to win a collossal electoral victory in May 1990. In July 1989 she was put under house arrest and the military junta that now rules Burma refused for six years either to free her or to transfer power to a civilian government as it had promised. Upon her release in July 1995, she immediately resumed the struggle for political freedom in her country.
Aung San Suu Kyi is an honorary fellow at St. Hugh's College, Oxford. In 1990 she was awarded the Thorolf Rafto Prize for Human Rights in Norway and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament. In its citation, the Norwegian Nobel Committee atated that in awarding the prize to Aung San Suu Kyi, it wished to honor this woman for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation by peaceful means.
