Japanese Armies invaded an almost defenseless Burma in 1942, sending tens of thousands fleeing over the mountains to India. They ruled the remaining Burmese, whom they boasted of liberating from British rule, with arrogance and brutality. Violet's Flight narrates the experiences of a young Anglo-Burmese girl and her relatives growing up happily under the British and their ordeal either escaping the Japanese or living under the occupation or fighting in the resistance.
The battles won by the allied armies coming out of India to retake Burma in 1944-45 are seen through the eyes of Japanese officers, who watch their armies suffer in their turn the agonies of defeat in war. The seeds of fascism sown by Aung San and his Burma Independence Army by joining the Japanese invasion, until disenchanted, grew like a weed, which poisoned Burmese society against Anglo-Burmese and other ethnic Burmans—strangling its bloom with an iron-fisted dictatorship.
Genre: FICTION / BiographicalQuickly out of print
Aloysius Nicholas checked the telegraph messages coming into the Toungoo railway station. There had been an accident near Mandalay in the north, but no one had been hurt. Some derailments seemed suspiciously like sabotage. Aloysius traveled up and down the lines to see whether operations were working as they should. Promoted from ticket collector to guard and, when he was transferred from Rangoon to Toungoo, to station master, then recently to chief controller, he impressed his superiors with his willingness and reliability. He was a good judge of a man’s character and treated employees under him with fairness and goodwill. He could be provoked but his response was usually mild and controlled. An incident that his family never forgot was his disagreement with the tall, muscular Indian who filled the family’s water tubs. As the master he could arrange for the man’s punishment or dismissal. Instead, he challenged him to a fight in his backyard, which reflected the personal relationship Aloysius had with people. The two of them wrestled and boxed for a quarter hour until Aloysius exhausted the pani wallah, seized him in a headlock and made him cry for mercy. The Indian never quarreled with him again, and they became friends.
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French
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Already translated.
Translated by Anderson D
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Antonio Eduardo Vargas Rodrigues
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Author review: I assume that the translation was well done and am willing to encourage the translator to bring more of my books into Portuguese. But, of course, the text and the translation will be the reader's prerogative to rate finally. |
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Ismael Rodriguez
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