The Rebel of Rangoon

This is the story of a Sisyphean struggle against oppression and the ambiguities arising in the glory of its unexpected resolution. A young man in contemporary Burma becomes a dissident and a leader in the latest generation of a movement shaped by decades of opposition to authoritarian rule.

Through his tale, and the tale of his friendship with a great rival, unfurls the larger story of a country’s emergence from military despotism. Schrank shows how a movement of dissidents came into being, how it almost died, and how it pushed its government to the breaking point and began an irreversible process of political reform.