On 11 June, the Frontline Club hosted Wendy Law-Yone, in conversation with the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall. She was discussed her new memoir based on the manuscripts of her father, Ed Law-Yone, the founder of Burma’s The Nation newspaper.

It was not until 20 years after his death that Law-Yone found the confidence to unearth her father’s manuscripts. She said:

“I can give my version of his version, so in a way this memoir is very slanted, because it’s not an attempt to write a full rounded autobiography.”

Law-Yone talked about her father’s early career:

 “[Ed Law-Yone] had been working as an editor on a newspaper owned by the Foreign Minister, and after which was supposed to get a diplomatic posting. At the end of the posting his boss said ‘you have no future as a diplomat, but you would make a very good newspaper man’, so in a huff he wrote his resignation and stormed off.”

Wendy Law-Yone with Bridget Kendall Photo credit: Millicent Teasdale

With Rangoon still in ruins following the Second World War, Law-Yone revealed:

“The only place he could afford was in downtown Rangoon, in some old Japanese stables. It stank and there was no electricity, but in that setting he produced his first copy of The Nation. Very optimistically he printed 2,000 copies. Just 12 were sold.”

Law-Yone explained her feelings at the time her father was arrested:

“Life changed from this great promise that I was nurturing about going to study abroad and everything stopped. One of the real paradoxes of exile and one of the real cruelties is that you’re forced to be absent, but it makes it really impossible for you to actually ever leave, because in exile you are constantly harkening back to a place you can never get to.”

Although admitting her mother probably never sent the letters, throughout Ed Law- Yone’s imprisonment, Law-Yone wrote letters to General Ne Win.

“Of all the dictators, Ne Win seemed to be the most knowable, and he had some very obvious human flaws.”

Kendall questioned the title of the memoir, to which Law-Yone replied:

“Whilst in the jungle trying to ferment this revolution, he was permanently frustrated at his peace-loving Burmese colleagues. He was always trying to light a fire under them and he said, ‘Remember the old Burmese saying: Die and it’s the vile earth, Live and it’s the golden parasol. So go for the golden parasol.’ It seems to characterise his do-or-die attitude to life.”

Law-Yone talked of the strength of her fathers voice and biting editorials:

“In one I remember he wrote ’the average Burmese is a wonderful ignoramus.’ He was more than a newspaper editor; he was telling people how to behave as newly independent nation.”

In light of the current anti – Muslim violence across Burma, Law Yone commented:

“This book has led me to try and understand a little more of what it means to be Burmese; this notion of what is Burmese is a very fluid thing, as the Burmese are all an amalgam of the differences that have been a part of Burma’s cultural history.”

Watch or listen to the event here:

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/insight-with-wendy-law-yone-a

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/insight-with-wendy-law-yone-a

In 1948, as Burma gained independence, a young man named Ed Law-Yone founded The Nation newspaper. It went on to become Burma’s leading English-language daily and a hugely influential voice in the country. Ed Law-Yone, the editor and proprietor, became a major player within the political elite, but following the military coup of 1962 the paper was closed and he was imprisoned.

After five years he fled to Thailand to form a government–in-exile and to try to ignite a revolution. He was unsuccessful and later settled in the US where he died in 1980. He did not live to see the Burma he dreamed of but he entrusted his daughter, Wendy Law-Yone, to tell his remarkable story.

It was not until 20 years after his death that Wendy Law-Yone found the confidence to unearth her father’s manuscripts. She will be joining us in conversation with the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall to talk about the unique portrait of Burma she discovered.

Wendy Law-Yone was born in Mandalay, Burma, in 1947. She fled after the 1962 coup, settling in the US where she published two novels The Coffin Tree and Irrawaddy Tango. She came to the UK on a David T.K. Wong creative writing fellowship at the University of East Anglia, and has been here ever since. In 2010 she published her third novel The Road to Wanting and her memoir Golden Parasol: A Daughter’s Memoir of Burma has just been released.