Jonathan Falla, a nurse and prizewinning playwright, spent an illegal year living with the Karen rebels. His richly illustrated account of life in the Burmese jungle creates an evocative portrait of a people fighting to preserve their way of life. The Karen, one of Burma's many minority peoples, have been waging an increasingly desperate war for autonomy against the Burmese government since 1949. Burma's 'closed door' policies have prevented any close study of Karen society since the 1920s and more recent writers have been forced to concentrate on Karen refugee communities in Thailand. Discussing all aspects of Karen life, this is no ordinary anthropological study but a highly personalized account. Based on the lives of individual Karen there are chapters on music, food, love, the patterns of forest and river life, on women, language, weaponry and mercenaries, and on the symbols of rebel nationalism.

‘Jonathan Falla offers us the human face of political change in contemporary Burma, a behind-the-lines view of the Karen Free State. There is all the erudition that we find in more formal texts but none of the pretension. What we are finally offered is a fresh and sharp view that is anthropological in the truest sense. It conveys to us the ‘feel’ of another way of life.’

Nigel Barley