Ulteriori informazioni
Informationen zum Autor Pascal Khoo Thwe was born in 1967 in a remote part of Burma's Shan States. In 1989 he left for England and studied English at Cambridge University. He now lives in London. This is his first book. Klappentext Winner of the 2002 Kiriyama Prize in Nonfiction In 1988 Dr John Casey, a Cambridge don visiting Burma, was told of a waiter in Mandalay with a passion for the works of James Joyce. Intrigued by this unlikely story, he visited the restaurant, where he met Pascal Khoo Thwe. The encounter was to change both their lives. Pascal grew up as a member of the tiny, remote Kayan Padaung tribe, famous for their 'giraffenecked' women. The Padaung practiced a combination of ancient animist and Buddhist customs mixed with the Catholicism introduced by Italian missionaries. Theirs was a dream culture, a world in which ancestors were worshipped and ghosts were a constant presence. Pascal was the first member of his community ever to study English at university. But in Burma, English books were rare, and independent thought was discouraged. Photocopies of the few approved texts would be passed from student to student, while tuition consisted of lecturers reciting essays that the students learned by rote. Within a few months of his chance meeting with Dr Casey, Pascal's world lay in ruins. Successive economic crises brought about by Burma's military dictatorship meant he had to give up his studies. The regime's repression grew more brutal, and Pascal's student-lover, who had become involved in the movement for democracy, was arrested, raped and finally murdered by the armed forces. Pascal fled to the jungle, becoming a guerrilla fighter in the life-or-death struggle against the government and seeing many of his friends and comrades die in battle. At a moment of desperation, he remembered the Englishman he had met in Mandalay and wrote him a letter, with little expectation of ever receiving a reply. Miraculously, the letter reached its destination on the other side of the world. Not only that, it would lead to Pascal's being rescued from the jungle and enrolling to study English at Cambridge University, the first Burmese tribesman ever to do so. From the Land of Green Ghosts is the autobiographical tale of a remarkable triumph of hope over despair, and of an encounter between two very different worlds. Hauntingly and poetically written, it unforgettably evokes the realities of life in modern-day Burma and one young man's long journey to freedom despite almost unimaginable odds. Zusammenfassung “A page-turner…deeply moving, beautifully written, and most inspiring. When I reached the last page, my heart was filled with joy and gratitude.” — Nien Chang, author of Life and Death in Shanghai An emotionally charged and lyrically written memoir about a remarkable odyssey from a Burmese hill tribe and a land torn by civil war to Cambridge University. It was during a tour on a trip through Burma that John Casey, a Cambridge don, first met Pascal Khoo Thwe, who was moonlighting in a Chinese restaurant to support himself as a student at Mandalay University. Thwe was born a member of the Padaung tribe in Burma where political turmoil and poverty are ever-present realities. Thwe left school to join the student rebels during the great insurrection of 1988, but remained in touch with Casey. He was forced to flee the country. It was his connection to Casey that enabled him to emigrate to England where he was admitted to Cambridge University. Despite his humble beginnings and the oppression he faced, Pascal Khoo Thwe brings us into a world forgotten by the West, but one that readers will not soon forget. ...
