Perfect Hostage

by Justin Wintle

Book Overview

Like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi is an iconic figure, and the best-known prisoner of conscience alive today. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, at great personal cost she has steadfastly opposed Burma's brutal military regime since 1988, when she emerged as the leader of the Burmese democracy movement. As well as house arrest she has endured every kind of intimidation, including an attempt on her life...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 009949115X
• ISBN13: 9780099491156
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Arrow
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Worthy Portrait of a Profound Woman

Justin Wintle has produced a volume that is wide in scope and rich in detail. Readers will be getting more than a life of Aung San Suu Kyi. Wintle introduces briefly the immediate and long term history of Burma, the life of Bogyoke Aung San, Suu Kyi's father, and the story of how a brutal dictatorship came to rule Burma and rename it Myanmar. Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD won fairly the elections of 1990, but was not granted any power by the brutal regime. Following the nonviolent dictates of her conscience, Suu Kyi's commitment to Burma is truly heroic, though not without critics and detractors. Wintle's book will no doubt remain a very important milestone for understanding a very important woman and her very troubled country. Read this book. It is well worth the time spent on it.

A respectable tribute to the world's most famous caged bird.

The author rights this book out of obvious respect. Yet despite any biases, he presents plenty of new research to back it up. For anyone wanting to uncover the mysteries behind this elegant living martyr, this is a must-read book. Accounts of "The Lady's" true sacrifices, the least of which are being banned from seeing her children or even husband on his death bed are remarkable. There are moments during this read when you feel like you are actually there, sitting in the car with her, waiting for the regime-hired thugs to beat your skull in, or anticipating the next on-slaught. This book, not only prefaces the story of her life with a comprehensive historical background, but also paints the picture of an iron-willed, extremely clever and amazingly patient woman. Such a small, gentle and feminine woman on the backdrop of a brutal regime, riots and often unadulterated chaos make this a read you won't soon forget. Whether you are intrested in Souh East Asian politics, or not, one can't help but respect this woman, if not sympathetically, thanks to the author's masterful brush strokes.

A good, comprehensive biography of Burma's true leader

This biography does what few other biographies of any leader do - it puts the subject in the proper historical perspective. Starting from the beginnings of the Burmese state, Wintle provides readers with background on Burma. This is useful because it places the country's modern politics in an appropriate frame of reference. For example, Wintle does not avoid the complexities of Burma's ethnic minorities and their long history, which later allows him to show how Aung San and his daughter Aung San Suu Kyi may have been the few leaders to be able to gain the trust of the minorities. I also appreciate Wintle's honest appraisal of Suu Kyi near the end of the book. While Wintle is obviously sympathetic to Suu Kyi (as we all should be), he does ask important questions about the success of her non-violence movement and stubbornness. My only criticism is that the book does not have comprehensive footnotes. While the author footnotes a few interesting articles, there are many other anecdotes and interpretations that should have been footnoted so the reader can check the source and read further if he desires. Hopefully, when (and if) Suu Kyi is released and allowed to lead in a democratic Burma, Wintle can update his volume to include more insights into this remarkable woman.

Burma's Iron Lady

Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Prisoner of Conscience Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of assassinated democratic hero Aung San, may be undertaking a hunger strike, according to sources in Thailand. Suu Kyi has refused food for three weeks and has turned away visitors, according to sources quoted by "The Nation." A lawyer who visited her recently said she appears thin and under stress. The 63-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years. Merely mentioning her name aloud in the wrong society can bring imprisonment by Burma's ruling generals. Burma is one of the world's most repressive regimes, carefully regulating the media, limiting access by foreigners and repressing all dissent. Human rights organizations routinely cite Burma for violating civil liberties, using forced and child labor, and tacitly encouraging opium production. Burma is the world's second largest producer of opium and a source of forced trafficking of women and children for sex. The ruling Junta has gone so far as changing the nation's name to Myanmar, and relocating the administrative capital from Rangoon to an inland city that affords greater secrecy. Despite its rich natural resources... petroleum, timber, tin, rubber, zinc, natural gas and hydroelectric power... Burma remains one of Asia's poorest countries because of mismanagement and a centralized economy. It's "Burmese Way to Socialism" was an unequivocal disaster. Politically Burma is a pariah in the international community; its only close ally is China. The US refuses to recognize the "Myanmar" regime. Against this background, British writer Justin Wintle has written a valuable political biography of Aung San Suu Kyi, now an ageing but tireless advocate for reform. Burma's ruling generals are in a dilemma: Suu Kyi's father, the murdered Aung San, is revered as a founder of Burmese democracy and its independence from colonialism, but his daughter is the regime's avowed enemy. Wintle does an excellent job outlining Aung San Suu Kyi's marriage to British national Michael Aris; her student years at Oxford, and her rise to power, her exile, as well as recent developments in the struggle for freedom. It was probably Burma that George Orwell had in mind when he wrote his political satires "1984" and "Animal Farm." Orwell, who was born in India, served in the British Colonial Police in Burma between the World Wars. Everything Orwell wrote about--a civilization turned on its head; a paranoid, insular, xenophobic totalitarian state where Big Brother watches everyone and the Truth Squad launders public opinion--is true in Burma today. In "Burmese Days," Orwell says of his colonial character, Flory: "For he had realized, suddenly, that in his heart he was glad to be coming back. This country which he hated was now his native country, his home. He had lived here ten years, and every particle of his body was compounded of Burmese soil. Scenes like these --