In 1991, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was awarded this for being a steadfast peaceful resistance to the draconian, petty and brutal Myanmar regime. She was under house arrest for 21 years as the leader of the National Defence League. She took all of the threats, disruption and harassment from the and look it back in the face with a wry smile and unlimited courage. She would have her friends and colleagues arrested regularly, her road was frequently blocked, especially if she had been planning to hold a meeting or gathering.

All of these overt and covert attacks would have ground most people down, but she bore it with good grace and resilience. She was sustained by her drive to see the country she loves, one day gain a functioning democracy. In these fifty-two letters, she discusses the problems that they have as a country, describes the plight of those that have suffered at the hands of the regime and the repression of the population. It is also full of minutia, she talks about the weather, taking tea and the festivals that were still permitted.

In some ways I liked this, she speaks with a strong voice and brings to life the country that very few have seen from outside. All the way through she has a very clear aim of bringing urgent and necessary change to the country change all the time she was in custody, an aim that the authorities to every opportunity to frustrate. She was released in 2010 and won the election in 2015. She has not been able to hold the presidency because she is the widow and mother of foreigners – provisions from the constitution that seem to have been written specifically to prevent her from being eligible. She was awarded the position of State Counsellor and wields power from there. She has faced criticism in the past couple of years as she has seemingly deliberately ignored the plight of the Rohingya people and the genocide that they are suffering. It tarnishes what is a good book and until that point a life that should have been celebrated. ( )

Interesting snippets of an autobiographical nature. ( )

Somewhat repetitive but an interesting insight into life in Burma at this time. The book left me wanting to know more and therefore i felt unfulfilled ( )

I originally read this in June of 2001, but the recent turmoil in Burma has led me to take it down off the shelf, and page through it again...

A collection of letters from the democratically-elected leader of Burma and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, who has been regularly and repeatedly put under house arrest since 1989 by the military junta which rules her country. These brief pieces were written between November 1995 and December 1996, and range in topic from the overtly political to the spiritual and personal. Full of Suu Kyi's keen observations and ironic humor - "Life is seldom dull for dissidents in Burma" - they address everything from the importance of tea in the social life of the country to the terrible injustices that SLORC (the State Law and Order Restoration Council) has heaped on pro-democracy activists.

I am a great admirer of Aung San Suu Kyi, and whole-heartedly recommend this collection to all, and most especially to those who would like to know more about this great woman or the history of modern Burma. Although the topics discussed are frequently quite serious, the author's gentle humanity infuses every word, and I came away feeling spiritually cleansed.

Unrelated to any political and/or philosophical issues, one passage in particular has stuck with me since I first read it: "When bathing in the rain was no longer one of great pleasures of my existence, I knew I had left my childhood behind me". This could have been written especially for me!

Black and white line drawings by Heinn Htet. ( )

A set of introductory essays on life in Burma. Serene detail of daily life, water festivals, Buddhist ceremonies, peacocks, military police assaulting innocent people. Life passes on. At the time of this writing, her life and work was a symbol, synonymous with the nascent Burmese peoples' hopes for democratization and the peace and security to do as they chose.

I am watching the almost surreal process of reform in Burma with interest. Ms. Suu Kyi holds a seat in the Burmese parliament. We'll see how the democratic governmental reforms hold together the disparate Burmese ethnic groups, as well as the continuous ethnic strife and sudden rush of Chinese and American investment.

This book is an introduction to the image of reform. Eager souls await what will become of Burma. ( )

In the wake of Luc Besson's film The Lady and her own delayed Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech of Aung San Suu Kyi in June 2012 I wanted the listen to more of her voices. This slim collection of 52 columns/letters written in 1995, that is some time after having been awarded the Nobel Prize, for the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun starts slow with tourist sites, people and food vignettes of Burma. We read about Suu Kyi receiving and paying visits, exchanging gifts and stories. More like a mother to her country than the leader of her party and opposition to the government.

Halfway in, the tone of the letters shift and the ugly sides of corruption, economic mismanagement and human right violations in Burma are revealed. While she hat to endure house arrests, it was her associates in prison who had to endure and died from the mistreatment of the ruling junta, aptly named SLORC. Her associates' heroic acceptance of repeated prison terms in atrocious conditions demonstrates a Rocky-like endurance to absorb any punishment the junta metes out. One wonders whether the current reforms will succeed and repay the sacrifices made on its behalf or end in repression. Compared to earlier pictures, Aung San Suu Kyi has visibly aged. Will she have the continued strength to carry the movement forward and accept executive duties? Or will she end Gandhi-like only partially witnessing the change? This collection of letters, while not too political, present her fair approach in the spirit of Lincoln: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." ( )

I just returned from a 4 week vacation to Myanmar and picked this book up to learn more about Myanmar and this amazing woman.

This book is a collection of 52 letters originally published in a Japanese Newspaper in the course of a year. Some seem to reflect what was going through her mind that day. Others go into more detail about Burma and the political situation there.

I enjoyed reading her views and impressions of Myanmar, though I did not enjoy the format of short articles. To read an entire book from her would be more my style. But as she is a political prisoner, you take what you can get. What impressed me the most was how upbeat she sounds, regardless of all the hassles and road-blocks the government puts in her path. ( )