Emma Larkin

A fascinating political travelogue that traces the life and work of George Orwell, author of 1984 and ANIMAL FARM, in Southeast AsiaOver the years the American writer Emma Larkin has spent traveling in Burma, also known as Myanmar, she's come to know all too well the many ways this brutal police state can be described as "Orwellian." The life of the mind exists in a state of siege in Burma, and it long has. But Burma's connection to George Orwell is not merely metaphorical; it is much deeper and more real. Orwell's mother was born in Burma, at the height of the British raj, and Orwell was fundamentally shaped by his experiences in Burma as a young man working for the British Imperial Police. When Orwell died, the novel-in-progress on his desk was set in Burma. It is the place George Orwell's work holds in Burma today, however, that most struck Emma Larkin. She was frequently told by Burmese acquaintances that Orwell did not write one book about their country - his first novel, Burmese Days - but in fact he wrote three, the "trilogy" that included Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four . When Larkin quietly asked one Burmese intellectual if he knew the work of George Orwell, he stared blankly for a moment and then said, "Ah, you mean the prophet!"In one of the most intrepid political travelogues in recent memory, Emma Larkin tells of the year she spent traveling through Burma using the life and work of George Orwell as her compass. Going from Mandalay and Rangoon to poor delta backwaters and up to the old hill-station towns in the mountains of Burma's far north, Larkin visits the places where Orwell worked and lived, and the places his books live still. She brings to vivid life a country and a people cut off from the rest of the world, and from one another, by the ruling military junta and its vast network of spies and informers. Using Orwell enables her to show, effortlessly, the weight of the colonial experience on Burma today, the ghosts of which are invisible and everywhere. More important, she finds that the path she charts leads her to the people who have found ways to somehow resist the soul-crushing effects of life in this most cruel police state. And George Orwell's moral clarity, hatred of injustice, and keen powers of observation serve as the author's compass in another sense they are qualities she shares and they suffuse her book - the keenest and finest reckoning with life in this police state that has yet been written.

Read Emma Larkin's posts on the Penguin Blog.A deeply reported account of life inside Burma in the months following the disastrous Cyclone Nargis and an analysis of the brutal totalitarian regime that clings to power in the devastated nation.On May 2, 2008, an enormous tropical cyclone made landfall in Burma, wreaking untold havoc and leaving an official toll of 138,300 dead and missing. In the days that followed, the sheer scale of the disaster became apparent as information began to seep out from the hard-hit delta area. But the Burmese regime, in an unfathomable decision of near-genocidal proportions, provided little relief to its suffering population and blocked international aid from entering the country. Hundreds of thousands of Burmese citizens lacked food, drinking water, and basic shelter, but the xenophobic generals who rule the country refused emergency help.Emma Larkin, who has been traveling to and secretly reporting on Burma for years, managed to arrange for a tourist visa in those frenzied days and arrived hoping to help. It was impossible for anyone to gauge just how much devastation the cyclone had left in its wake; by all accounts, including the regime's, it was a catastrophe of epic proportions. In Everything Is Broken , Emma Larkin chronicles the chaotic days and months that followed the storm, revealing the secretive politics of Burma's military dictatorship and the bizarre combination of vicious military force, religion, and mysticism that defined its unthinkable response to this horrific event.The Burmese regime hid the full extent of the storm's devastation from the rest of the world, but the terrible consequences for Burma and its citizens continue to play out months after the headlines have faded from newspapers around the world. In Everything Is Broken , Larkin-whose deep knowledge of the Burmese people has afforded her unprecedented access and a rare understanding of life under Burmese oppression-provides a singular portrait of the regime responsible for compounding the tragedy and examines the historical, religious, and superstitious setting that created Burma's tenacious and brutal dictatorship. Writing under an assumed name, Larkin delivers the heretofore untold story of a disaster that stunned the world, unveiling as she does so the motivations of the impenetrable generals who govern this troubled nation.

In Bangkok, a plot of land behind a city slum resonates with the hopes, dreams and fears of the local community. For Comrade Aeon, a homeless insurgent who fled to the jungle after a military crackdown on student protestors in 1976, it’s a verdant refuge and the place from which he documents the underbelly of the city. For Ida Barnes, an ex-pat whose husband may be cheating on her, it’s an inviting retreat. For Witty, an urbane property developer married to one of the city’s most famous movie stars, it’s a ‘Bangkok Unicorn’ – that rare chance to make his mark on the Bangkok skyline. But the slum-dwelling spirits who guard its secrets know that it holds a much darker history, that it masks the silent politics at the heart of Thai culture.

Izzy is a seven-year-old girl who lives in Ireland and loves all sport, especially Gaelic Football.Izzy plays football with her brothers on a regular basis in their back garden and dreams of playing for her county in the All Ireland Ladies Football Final in Croke Park when she is older.One day, Izzy puts on her great grandmother's bracelet, which is made of old All Ireland medals that her great grandmother won a long time ago, and something unexpected and magical happens, which may make Izzy's Croke Park dream a reality sooner than she expected................

“Will you please come back and play for the club Aoife?”. Aidan asks his twin sister this question every week. Twins, Aoife and Aidan Power, along with their four best friends love playing Gaelic football. They spend most evenings after school playing football in the green in their picturesque rural village of “Droichead Beag”. Aoife and Aidan are skilful and fast but when they combine on the same team, “Twin Power” is unleashed and they have an almost telepathic communication on the pitch, leading to some spectacular scores.But while Aoife loves football, an incident at a match almost two years earlier saw her stop training and playing with her local GAA club, Droichead Beag GAA. Aidan knows what happened, but Aoife refuses to tell her friends. Could it have something to do with their Under 12 counterparts in Gorman GAA, the rival parish team of Droichead Beag, where old rivalries run deep?And how will Aoife’s refusal to play affect their school team when the children’s teacher Ms. Kelly, herself a former All- Star football player announces an exciting new school’s football competition, “Star Schools GAA”?Parish rivalries re-surface and threaten to get out of hand as the children of Droichead Beag National School fight tooth and nail to get their hands on the coveted first ever Star Schools Cup.

Izzy is an eight-year-old girl who lives in Ireland and loves all sport, especially camogie and Gaelic football. Izzy plays Gaelic football with her local club “Bally GAA” and has just started playing camogie. Izzy is very excited to learn how to play camogie, but she is frustrated when she can’t master all the skills as quickly as she would like. One day, Izzy puts on her great grandmother’s bracelet, which is made of old All Ireland medals that her great grandmother won a long time ago. Just like during her first magical adventure, the bracelet takes Izzy on a journey, but this time, it’s a different type of adventure! This new magical journey is just as exciting as her first one, and it sees Izzy come back with some important lessons learned and with more than just new camogie skills! This book is aimed at readers from age seven onwards starting to read independently. It is based around the themes of girls in sport, encouraging girls to play sport and girl’s ability to play sport at a high level, while also having a fun magical theme. It could also be read to a younger child. It is the second in the “Izzy” series of books by Emma Larkin. The first book is “Izzy’s Magical Football Adventure”.

"Will you please come back and play for the club Aoife?". Aidan asks his twin sister this question every week. Twins, Aoife and Aidan Power, along with their four best friends love playing Gaelic football. They spend most evenings after school playing football in the green in their picturesque rural village of "Droichead Beag". Aoife and Aidan are skilful and fast but when they combine on the same team, "Twin Power" is unleashed and they have an almost telepathic communication on the pitch, leading to some spectacular scores.But while Aoife loves football, an incident at a match almost two years earlier saw her stop training and playing with her local GAA club, Droichead Beag GAA. Aidan knows what happened, but Aoife refuses to tell her friends. Could it have something to do with their Under 12 counterparts in Gorman GAA, the rival parish team of Droichead Beag, where old rivalries run deep?And how will Aoife's refusal to play affect their school team when the children's teacher Ms. Kelly, herself a former All- Star football player announces an exciting new school's football competition, "Star Schools GAA"?Parish rivalries re-surface and threaten to get out of hand as the children of Droichead Beag National School fight tooth and nail to get their hands on the coveted first ever Star Schools Cup.

"The Lost Cup? You don't want to know about that". Aidan has been thwarted at every turn, in his efforts to find out where the mysterious lost cup is hidden, or if it even really exists. A year after the escapades of Gaelic football mad twins, Aoife and Aidan Power, along with their four best friends in Twin Throw In, the Droichead Beag gang are back!However, all is not rosy. Cracks are starting to show as the gang's strong foundation creaks under the strain of new friendships with players from their rival club Gorman, along with football injuries and tense must win matches.With all this tension in the background, Aidan becomes fixated on finding the mysterious Lost Cup which was allegedly hidden 100 years ago during the Irish Civil War. Why will no one talk to him about it? Will a school trip to the GAA museum in Croke Park shed any light on this mystery? How is the lost cup linked to rivalries between Droichead Beag GAA and Gorman GAA?Can Aoife and Aidan solve this mystery, reunite their gang of friends and return to having fun on the football field?

Aoife and Aidan Power love playing Gaelic football. They're so skilful and fast their friends call them 'Twin Power'.Every young Gaelic footballer dreams of playing in Féile, the biggest competition there is. Both Aoife and Aidan's teams are vying to qualify, but what will happen now that the twins are on separate boys' and girls' teams for the first time?With secondary school to navigate, new teams to get used to, and a family mystery to solve … it's going to be a busy season for Twin Power!

Se référant aux cinq années passées par l'écrivain en Birmanie et aux écrits que ce séjour lui a inspirés, l'auteure parcourt les lieux où Orwell a vécu, se mêle à la population, interroge les gens, fait appel à leur mémoire. Tous décrivent un régime totalitaire où surveillance et suspicion sont la règle et qui n'est pas sans rappeler les situations cauchemardesques décrites dans 1984.Récipiendaire de l’Asia-Pacific Grand Prix, ce livre saura vous surprendre et vous émouvoir.