Politics & Prose at Busboys and Poets 14th & V welcomes Charmaine Craig to present her new book "Miss Burma."
Craig, author of The Good Men, draws on her family history for her long-awaited second novel. Unfolding in Burma between the 1940s and 1960s, the narrative follows Benny, Khin, and their daughter Louisa as they persevere through colonialism, World War II and Japanese occupation, and the ethnic divisions that have made Burma the site of the longest-running civil war in history. Like Craig’s maternal relatives, Khin is part of the repressed Karen minority, and Louisa experiences both sides of her heritage, becoming the first Burmese beauty queen and then joining a revolutionary guerilla group to fight for Karen independence. Vivid and heartfelt, Craig’s first novel in fifteen years illuminates a complicated nation many Westerners know little about.
