The Moon Princess: Another book on Burma

The Moon Princess: Memories of the Shan States, a publication of River Books London, is written by Sao Sanda Yawnghwe Simms, who will be 80 in June. What really interests me is not that she is a daughter of Sao Shwe Thaike, Prince of Yawnghwe, who became the first President of the Union of Burma and died under mysterious circumstances in 1962 at Insein after the coup that toppled Burma’s elected government.
 
It  is that she is a respected author, who together with her late husband Peter Simms, wrote The Kingdom of Laos, and moreover a former journalist, who used to work as newsreader and commentator with the Burma Broadcasting Service  (BBS) before the coup which led to the loss of a brother and a father.
 
The book, according to the brochure, describes Sao Sanda’s growing up in the Shan States and records the changes that occurred during the periods of British colonial rule, war and Japanese occupation, the return of  the British administration, the troubled years after Burma’s independence and finally the military takeover in 1962.
 
The 320-page book with over 160 illustrations, many of which I have never seen in my whole life, will certainly worth its price ฃ 16.95 (B 1,150). Naturally, I cannot afford to buy it but, fortunately, through kind suggestions by friends, she had sent it to me as a present. This is definitely one of the best gifts I have ever received.
 
The book will for sure complement memoirs already written and published by others, notably, Twilight over Burma: My life as a Shan princess by Inge Sargent (1994), My Vanishing World by Nel Adams aka Sao Noan Oo of Lawkzawk and The White Umbrella, the life of Sao Hearn Hkam, the late Mahadevi of Yawnghwe, by Patricia Elliot (1999) about Burma’s Shan State, where, as many Shan-Burma scholars will say, the origins of the military takeover could be traced to.
 
For more information, please contact River Books London, Email:chris@newcavendishbooks.co.uk or www.riverbooksbk.com. Or wait until I’ve read it.