Have Fun in Burma
A Novel
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Adela Frost wants to do something with her life. When a chance encounter and a haunting dream steer her toward distant Burma, she decides to spend the summer after high school volunteering in a Buddhist monastery. Adela finds fresh confidence as she immerses herself in her new environment, teaching English to the monks and studying meditation with the wise abbot. Then there's her secret romance with Thiha, an ex-political prisoner with a shadowy past. But when some of the monks express support for the persecution of the country's Rohingya Muslim minority, Adela glimpses the turmoil that lies beneath Burma's tranquil surface. While investigating the country's complex history, she becomes determined to help stop communal violence. With Thiha's assistance, she concocts a scheme that quickly spirals out of control. Adela must decide whether to back down or double down, while protecting those she cares about from the backlash of Buddhist and Muslim extremists. Set against the backdrop of Burma's fractured transition to democracy, this coming-of-age story weaves critiques of "voluntourism" and humanitarian intervention into a young woman's quest for connection across cultural boundaries. This work of literary fiction will fascinate Southeast Asia buffs and anyone interested in places where the truth is bitterly contested territory.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Metro's thoughtful if predictable debut is a classic bildungsroman in which a young American spends a formative summer before college in 2010s Myanmar, seeking to find herself. When Adela Frost, a New England prep school student, overhears the man at the sushi counter chanting Buddha's words of goodwill, she is intrigued. It turns out he is an exile from the country he calls Burma, and following this encounter Adela signs up to go there with a Peace Corps like organization called Myanmar Volunteers United. She is assigned to teach English at a remote Buddhist monastery, and, after her initial shock at the rough conditions, she genuinely connects with the monks during lessons. Adela is taken under the wing of Daw Pancavati, a nun who cares for her like a daughter, and falls for Thiha, a political exile residing at the monastery. As Adela becomes aware of the country's religious and racial tensions, she addresses various prejudices with her students and is appalled to find even the monks profess them, especially against Muslims. When she is reassigned to teach a group of children living at the monastery, she comes up with an idea for letting the world know about what she's witnessed, but her plan goes seriously awry. Metro's story is overly didactic, but it is an affecting coming-of-age tale, and is perhaps most valuable for its look at Myanmar's complicated political situation.
