Organizer: Asian American / Asian Research Institute

Type/Location: Virtual

Description:

Novelist Wendy Law-Yone, tracks Aung San Suu Kyi’s transformation from the daughter of a national hero to materfamilias of Myanmar, placing her firmly within the context of the Burmese Buddhist notions of nationhood and motherhood and explaining her continuing role as the figurehead of the nation’s struggles. The result is a unique portrait of a living legend, rendered by a compatriot and contemporary. Once deified by the international community for her advocacy of democracy and human rights, yet later vilified for her denial of the Burmese military’s genocidal campaign against the Rohingya, Aung San Suu Kyi’s image survives largely untarnished within Myanmar. Her supporters refer to her as ‘Amay Suu’ (Mother Suu). Heir to the political and spiritual legacy of her father, General Aung San, an independence hero and martyr, she remains the lodestar of nationalist aspirations and matriarch for a nation in distress.

Speaker:

Wendy Law-Yone is a Burmese-American novelist whose books have been translated into many languages and taught in literature, history, and Asian Studies courses in universities throughout Europe and the United States. International awards for her writing include a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Award for Creative Writing, a Harvard Foundation Award for International Literary Arts and Intercultural Relations, a David T. K. Wong Creative Writing Fellowship from the University of East Anglia, and a Friedrich Dürrenmatt Guest Professorship of World Literature at the University of Berne. Aung San Suu Kyi: Politician, Prisoner, Parent (HarperCollins, 2023), is Wendy’s most recent book.

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