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Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on December 15, 2009.
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Co-founder/director of Digital Democracy.
I've been working with refugees from Burma in the Denver area. It doesn't seem that this book will be translated into Karenni, the language that most of them speak. Does anyone know of any books or literature that have been translated into Karenni?
Huzzah! YES YES YES This is so awesome!!! Congrats DD!
Woo! I'm excited to share this book with people who could use the message! Good job Emily (and everyone who contributed)!
Hey Rakesh, I definitely understand your thoughts. It's true that much of Little Brother is very modern, but at its heart it's a good read about young people triumphing against authority, and I think on that basic level it's very powerful.
Also, Burma/Myanmar is getting more technologically advanced. Internet cafes are common in cities and bigger towns, and they are filled with young people using chat to talk with friends all over the world. Burma's a highly literary society, so this would not be the first book they'll be exposed to ... but it's one of many that we'd like to add to their libraries. Most of all, our local translators are interested & excited in the project. It's a way for them to learn, develop their skills, and then share their translated versions with others.
There's an old anecdote in Burma saying that "George Orwell wrote 3 books about the history of Burma: Burmese Days, Animal Farm, 1984. The first about the colonial period, the second about the social period, and the last about the dictatorship." Doctorow could potentially be a powerful 4th installment, though he wasn't born there as Orwell was.
OK, I take it back about 1984, that doesn't have the technology teaching angle you're going for. But maybe it can be brought across in a story that is less foreign to Burmese culture?
I am a big fan of Doctorow's book, but I have to wonder if this energy is a little misplaced. The setting in the book is sooo American -- Californian, in fact -- and the plot is so concerned with contemporary American politics and youth culture that I doubt it will make any sense to the average Burmese reader even if the translation is excellent. Has Orwell's 1984 been translated into Burmese yet? I wonder if that might be a better choice.