The Rebel of Rangoon (INTL PB ED)

Book excerpt: Set in the trenches of a nonviolent pro-democracy opposition in a dark and hermetically sealed country on the verge of massive transformation, The Rebel of Rangoon tracks a revolution in real time. Journalist Delphine Schrank spent four years undercover among dissidents in the Burmese underground—eavesdropping in teashops, across flickering online connections, and in mud-moated rural hamlets. Through their stories of courage and sacrifice, she explores the dilemmas and passions of Burma’s ragged and diffuse inter-generational revolutionary movement, whose existence and ultimate triumph against one of the world’s most repressive governments has remained largely submerged behind that of their globally celebrated figurehead, Aung San Suu Kyi. The Rebel of Rangoon is the story of a Sisyphean struggle against oppression, and of the ambiguities arising in the glory of its unexpected resolution. A young man in contemporary Burma— Nway—becomes a dissident and a leader in the latest generation of a movement shaped by decades of opposition to authoritarian rule. Through his tale, and the tale of his growing friendship with a great rival— Nigel—unfurls the larger story of a country’s emergence from military dictatorship, how a movement of dissidents came into being, how it almost died, and how it pushed its government to crack apart and begin an irreversible process of political reform. Schrank offers a powerful portrait of the men and women who braved it all to carry their people’s hope, never relenting in their fight for freedom.