Book description
Set in the days of the Empire, with the British ruling in Burma,
Burmese Days describes both indigenous corruption and Imperial bigotry,
when 'after all, natives were natives - interesting, no doubt, but
finally only a "subject" people, an inferior people with black
faces'. Against the prevailing orthodoxy, Flory, a white timber
merchant, befriends Dr Veraswami, a black enthusiast for Empire. The
doctor needs help. U Po Kyin, Sub- divisional Magistrate of Kyauktada,
is plotting his downfall. The only thing that can save him is European
patronage: membership of the hitherto all-white Club. While Flory
prevaricates, beautiful Elizabeth Lackersteen arrives in Upper Burma
from Paris. At last, after years of 'solitary hell', romance and
marriage appear to offer Flory an escape from the 'lie' of the 'pukka
sahib pose'.
Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in India in 1903. He was
educated at Eton, served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, and
worked in Britain as a private tutor, schoolteacher, bookshop
assistant and journalist. In 1936, Orwell went to fight for the
Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and was wounded. In 1938 he was
admitted into a sanatorium and from then on was never fully fit.
George Orwell died in London in 1950.
Emma Larkin is the pseudonym for an American journalist who was born
and raised in Asia, studied the Burmese language at the School of
Oriental and African Studies in London, and covers Asia in her
journalism from her base in Bangkok. She has been visiting Burma for
close to ten years.
