Diary
Wartime in Burma
စစ်အတွင်း နေ့စဉ်မှတ်တမ်း
Theippan Maung Wa · 1942
Synopsis
The diary opens in January 1942, a few weeks after Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese army enters Burma. A senior official at the Rangoon Secretariat, the diarist notes the alerts and the bombers that return on moonlit nights over the city, where he lives with his wife and their three young children. Then the family leaves the capital with other Burmese officials, their servants and their belongings, for a remote forest in upper Burma.
Context
Written day by day from January to June 1942, with no public destination, the text breaks off on 5 June. Its author was then under-secretary at the Ministry of the Interior and Defence. The sheets, found scattered on the floor of the house where the family had taken refuge, were gathered up by his widow and appeared in Burma in 1966. L. E. Bagshawe and Anna Allott gave an English translation of it with Ohio University Press in 2009, followed by a witness's account of the diarist's death.
Who it is for
A diary in Burmese, translated into English in 2009 (216 pages); no French translation. It is as well to know the broad outline of the 1942 Burma campaign.
Prizes and reception
Presented by its American publisher as a unique testimony that sheds fresh light on the military retreat of 1942.
Sources for this page 6
The pages consulted to check this page.