The Lizard Cage (60 page)

Win Naing Oo, with whom I did my first extensive interviews about prison life, and whose writings, especially in the ABSDF publication
Cries from Insein
, helped me to build a fictional prison. Many of ABSDF’s publications were indispensable to my understanding of prison life in Burma. The punishments in the novel, created around seemingly innocuous contraband—pen and paper and words—came directly out of the shocking book called
Pleading Not Guilty in Insein
, a translation of an official court document that was smuggled out of Insein Prison. It records the trials of twenty-two political prisoners whose cells were raided and whose sentences were increased substantially on the basis of the contraband found therein: pens, paper, political poems, old copies of English magazines, congratulatory letters, and notes to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Min Min Oo, Zaw Zaw Htun, and the others from the days in Mae Sarieng.

Soe Aung, Zaw Min, and Dr. Naing Aung, for border trips, military camps, malaria, dysentery, and many late-night conversations.

Political activist Moe Thi Zon, whose love for his country and for his imprisoned comrades helped me to imagine my two Burmese brothers into existence.

U Aye Saung, U Soe Pyne, Tennyson, and the journalist U Aung Phay, for telling me about his time on Coco Island; Win Min, Bo Saw Tun, Kyaw
Thura, Thet Hmu, Yeni, Pet Thet Nee, Lwanni, and Mun Awng. The story of my young musician is not entirely fictional: Mun Awng’s famous songs of defiance were the soundtrack to my writing.

My gratitude especially to Aye Aye Khaing, Aye Aye Lwin, Ma Ae Ae Muh, and Ma Su Pwint.

The irrepressible poet and great teacher Sayagyi U Tin Moe.

Bo Kyi, Aung Din, Min Mon, and the others at AAPP, for long discussions and for tireless work on behalf of those who are still imprisoned. Thanks especially to Bo Kyi for his miraculous sense of humor.

Dr. Cynthia Maung and numerous members of the staff from the Mae Tao Clinic.

Aung Naing Oo, for his political insights, and Shona Kirkwood, for her sustaining friendship and for her comments on an early version of the book.

The self-effacing but nevertheless remarkable Pippa Curwen, and the staff of the Burma Relief Centre, for many different kinds of help and support. Everyone at Images Asia, in particular Lyndal Barry. Heather Kelly and Marc Laban, for bringing me back to Southeast Asia in 1996 and encouraging me to visit Burma.

I have been fortunate to find a friend as well as a writing colleague in Aung Zaw, the journalist and editor of
The Irrawaddy
. He and his brother, Kyaw Zwa Moe, have spoken with me at length over the years, not only about their experiences in Burmese prisons but about many different facets of Burmese politics, Buddhism, and culture. Thanks too to Moe Kyaw, Win Thu, and the other staff members at
The Irrawaddy
.

The works of Burmese writers were important to me in my research, especially those by Ludu U Hla, Mya Than Tint, Journalgyaw Ma Ma Lei, Moe Aye, Pascal Khoo Thwe, and numerous short story writers still in Burma. My thanks also to several dedicated translators of Burmese, in particular Anna Allot and Ohnmar Khin. Anna Allot and Colleen Beresford read early versions of the novel and provided much-needed encouragement when I was poor and doubtful in Greece. Thanks also to Daw Nita in London, for her courage and grace.

I am grateful to Bertil Lintner and other Western writers for their excellent books about Burma: Edith Mirante, Christina Fink, Minke Nijhuis,
Martin Smith, and Alan Clements. Alan’s interviews with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and senior members of the National League for Democracy were integral to my understanding of a vital and politically engaged Buddhism.

While based in Vancouver, I had the great pleasure of yelling through a bullhorn at Canadian companies (such as Ivanhoe Mines) that continue to do business with the Burmese junta. For that experience and others like it, I thank the members of the Vancouver-Burma Roundtable. They and other activists continue to remind the Canadian government that Canada has another deep, very expensive connection to the narcodictatorship of Burma: Vancouver is the major Western port for Burmese heroin.

The Karen, Shan, and Burman communities of Vancouver, Ottawa, and Toronto have kept me connected to Burma even when what I love about that country has felt far away. I am grateful for their wonderful hospitality, enthusiasm, and support of my work. I can say the same for several other Burmaphiles: Christine Harmston, Katrina Andersen, Corinne Baumgarten, other Canadian Friends of Burma, and the documentary filmmaker Holly Fisher.

Dr. Simon Bryant, Dr. Duncan Nickerson, and Dr. Win Myint Than offered excellent medical expertise on the subjects of dysentery, malnutrition, and distended jaws. The therapist Audrey Cook shared with me her wisdom and her extensive knowledge of child sexual abuse and the cyclical nature of trauma; she taught me a great deal about “the child in prison,” and how many imprisoned children live all around us. The trauma research of Bessel A. Van de Kolk, Judith L. Herman, and Sandra Bloom provided me with a crucial education. The line quoted on
this page
is from Pema Chödrön’s book
When Things Fall Apart
.

Soe Win Than from the BBC read the manuscript and offered invaluable criticisms—he has been a great friend to this novel, and to me. Other excellent readers were Soe Kyaw Thu, Dr. Win Myint Than and her family, Libby Oughton, and my heroine, Nancy Holmes. Thank you all for making me a better writer. And
tzey-zu-bay
to my wonderful teachers of Burmese at SEASSI, in Madison, Wisconsin. For crucial financial assistance, I am grateful to the Canada Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Writing about prison life and its many kinds of violence was often painful and difficult, but the work was made easier by supportive communities
in Canada, Greece, and Thailand. I have been blessed throughout the writing and beyond it by the friendship and love of Libby, Nancy, Maria Coffey, Dag Goering, Beth Kope, Sandra Shields, David Campion, Linda Griffiths, Mireille and Panagos Katirzoglou, Andreas Amerikanos, Vangelis Ikonomidis, my Thai brother Goong Samakeemavin, Ajahn Champa, and the late Timothy Findley.

I owe debts of gratitude both to my wise and persevering agent, Jackie Kaiser, and to Anne Collins of Random House Canada. In the final stages of writing, I had the unexpected pleasure of working with Lorna Owen of Nan A. Talese/Doubleday New York. Beyond the brilliant editing, both her and Nan Talese’s enthusiasm and willingness to take the risk has brought this story of Burma to a much wider audience; I know I’m not the only one who is thankful for that.

While I was working on this novel, my brother and I engaged in a correspondence that spanned the length of his prison sentence in Alberta. Though Canadian and Burmese prisons are very different places, his letters gave me a unique perspective on the day-to-day psychology of imprisonment. His prison stories also convinced me that, contrary to popular belief, we
do
have political prisoners in North America. But we prefer to call them mentally ill, drug-addicted, Native, and black.

I am grateful to my family, especially to my mother, Jackie Henry, who has taught me much about the saving graces of generosity and humor and the elasticity of love. Hers has stretched with me all over the planet, making me a most fortunate daughter. Last but not least, I thank my dear friend and husband, Robert Chang, whose presence in my life is a daily blessing.

ALSO BY KAREN CONNELLY

NONFICTION

Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal
One Room in a Castle: Letters from Spain, France, and Greece

POETRY

The Small Words in My Body

This Brighter Prison

The Disorder of Love

The Border Surrounds Us

Grace and Poison

In the mid-1990s, Karen Connelly visited Burma numerous times until she was denied a visa by the military regime. She then lived for almost two years on the Thai-Burma border, among Burmese exiles and dissidents. She had already emerged on the Canadian publishing scene in her early twenties with the publication of
Touch the Dragon, A Thai Journal
, which won the Governor General’s Award for Nonfiction and stayed on best-seller lists for over a year. The same book was published in the United States as
Dream of a Thousand Lives
, and was a
New York Times
Notable Travel Book of the Year in 2002. Her first book of poetry,
The Small Words in My Body
, won the Pat Lowther Award for best book of poetry by a Canadian woman. She is currently working on a memoir about the refugee camps, border towns, and rebel army camps of the Thai-Burma border. She has two homes, one in Toronto and the other in a Greek island village.
The Lizard Cage
is her first novel. In 2005, it was nominated for the Kiriyama Prize, and in 2007 Karen Connelly won the Orange Broadband Award for New Writers.

For more information about this author, please visit
www.karenconnelly.ca
.