Burma Chronicles
Ratings17
Average rating4
15
Ratings17
Average rating4
After developing his acclaimed style of firsthand reporting with his bestselling graphic novels Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea and Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China, Guy Delisle is back with Burma Chronicles. In this country notorious for its use of concealment and isolation as social control-where scissor-wielding censors monitor the papers, the leader of the opposition has spent twelve of the past eighteen years under house arrest, insurgent-controlled regions are effectively cut off from the world, and rumor is the most reliable source of current information-he turns his gaze to the everyday for a sense of the big picture.
Delisle's deft and recognizable renderings take note of almsgiving rituals, daylong power outages, and rampant heroin use in outlying regions, in this place where catastrophic mismanagement and iron-handed rule come up against profound resilience of spirit, expatriate life ambles along, and nongovernmental organizations struggle with the risk of co-option by the military junta. Burma Chronicles is drawn with a minimal line, and interspersed with wordless vignettes and moments of Delisle's distinctive slapstick humor.
Reviews with the most likes.
Nice style and very easy read. Learned a ton about Myanmar/Burma from reading it.
It started to lag a little and I was going to give it four stars, but I really liked it towards the end when he went on the meditation retreat for 3 days, talked about MSF pulling out (and why), heroin use and treatment.
I related to some of Delisle's experiences as I visited Thailand around 2013 and I saw some similar cultural quirks such as locals bundling up when it got below like 75 degrees, motorbikes, monks, interesting shops, haggling and favorable exchange rates.
