Sue Arnold's Top Book Recommendations

Sue ArnoldYes, I think she spent time on the Thai-Burmese border where all the refugees are based. It’s actually a jolly harrowing book, a bit of a whodunnit. The Lizard Cage is a prison about 100 miles from Rangoon and the Burmese equivalent of a gulag, with political prisoners, gangster prisoners, and the most reviled are the political prisoners in solitary. The book is about this man known as the... (Source)

Sue ArnoldThe Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason. It’s a first novel, and it’s extraordinarily original and interesting. It’s set in the southern Shan States in 1886 and it’s about Edgar Drake who specialises in tuning rare pianos. Drake gets a call from someone at the War Office saying would he come to see him about going out to Burma to tune an Erard, which is the rarest of all pianos: there were only maybe... (Source)

Sue ArnoldFor fiction about Burma, I suppose you should start with the classic of all time, which has to be Orwell’s Burmese Days. The story is about John Flory, a timber merchant in Burma, who’s a bit disillusioned and nothing much is happening to him. Everything is based around the English Club, with all the tiny things that put you wrong, and it’s such a mean, bitchy little place. It’s terribly snooty,... (Source)

Bertil LintnerThis is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand today’s Burmese politics. (Source)

Sean TurnellIt’s an extraordinarily inspirational book, as befits someone who has stood up for things and made such immense sacrifices. (Source)

Steve CrawshawFor more than two decades, every conversation in Burma or about Burma has ended up being about Aung San Suu Kyi. (Source)

Bertil LintnerPascal took part in the 1988 uprising and then escaped to Thailand and from there made it to the UK. He went to Cambridge where he read English literature; he learned to write very well in English and came out with this fantastic book. (Source)

Emma LarkinI recommend it as an all-encompassing experience of Burma on so many levels. (Source)

Sue ArnoldI’m not sure Pascal Koo Thwe is very happy or fulfilled because I feel that if you’re Burmese and you want to do something you should be there somehow. (Source)