Title : Burma Chronicles
Author : Guy Delisle
Publisher : Jonathan Cape
Pages : 264
This graphic novel, now in a new edition, follows in the footsteps of work by Joe Sacco, providing a first-person perspective on life as an outsider in a country rocked by poverty and instability. However, unlike Sacco's gritty, rousing accounts of life under an oppressive regime, Burma Chronicles revolves entirely around the experiences of the author as an expat in an unfamiliar country.
Funny and endearing
The result is a funny, endearing account of Delisle's life in Burma (the author firmly avoids the name Myanmar, preferring the name used by countries that do not see the regime that took over in 1989 as legitimate), looking after his toddler Louis while his spouse Nadège is away on work. Nadège, who works for MSF (Medicins Sans Frontières or Doctors Without Borders), is the reason the family is in Burma, and Delisle spends his time exploring Rangoon, where they are based.
A good deal of the situations portrayed in the graphic novel are witnessed by Delisle while pushing his baby about in a pram, and the slouching figure of the author preceded by a stroller certainly earns its place on the novel's cover.
As a foreigner in Burma under a military dictatorship, however, the author's access to several places is restricted, and if you were hoping to see tear-jerking scenes of poverty and human suffering, you will be disappointed.
Burma Chronicles , deals more with Delisle's experience of everyday life —the lone Karen Carpenter song playing in an endless loop at the supermarket, house-hunting, the heat, rain and power outages, and poking fun at himself for his handling of the various situations he finds himself in.
The illustrations are neat, and the clean grid format and ordered gutters add to the feeling of being limited, as the author is, by travel restrictions and conversations monitored by party officials, in a country where it seems only the very old can afford to air their opinions freely. Moreover, Delisle's is not the eye of a journalist, and one gets a frustrating sense of having got only a glimpse of its people.
That said, Burma Chronicles (which comes after Shenzhen and Pyongyang, Delisle's previous graphic novels on life under an oppressive regime) avoids sentimentalising the hardships faced by the Burmese people, managing an honest, sensitive portrayal of life in a country that is really worth knowing more about.
