![]() ![]() ![]() This is a story balanced by historical context but related by the people with whom Eimer shares his time, from granddaughters of former presidents to the squatters in Yangon’s shacks, from former political exiles to jade miners digging for their fortune in the far north. To explore its magic and depths, David Eimer takes his narrative through history, class and geography, including areas still barred to foreigners. A Vicious Wonderland reveals it in all its technicolour glory. In a country where building a temple takes priority over installing traffic lights, golf courses are ploughed out alongside fields of opium poppies and fortune-tellers are consulted on a daily basis even by the government, any sepia-tinged and colonial idea of Burma is long out of date. Nothing is straightforward in this captivating and enigmatic land. Halfway through A Savage Dreamland, his account of his travels in Burma, David Eimer reports a conversation with a local journalist, who tells him that the foreign media write only about. His journey begins in Yangon as all journeys in Myanmar do, and he takes us through the transforming city which, despite its surfeit of colonial architecture, is like a noisy and congested building site. Yet the government and country are still far from stable. Eimer arrives on the cusp of this new dispensation and ambitiously, for a foreigner, sets out to get to the heart of the golden land. It was only in late 2015 that the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won absolute majority and were able to take their seats in government. From 1962, the people of Burma were marooned in a paranoid military dictatorship, effectively cut off from the outside world. ![]()
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