Bookshelf

Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma's Military Regime
edited by Maggie Lemere and Zoe West
Voice of Witness/McSweeney's Books, 2011

Although personal accounts make up the backbone of essentially all journalistic and academic work, if at times only indirectly, the spoken word is still notoriously difficult to work with in print. Better to leave it to the novelists, perhaps, or to radio and television journalists, to capture the nuances in such accounts. Human speech is simply difficult to package; even a radio or television journalist is forced to pick and choose well-sculpted sound bites and 'actualities'. Mere transcripts are more often than not boring, confusing, even incoherent.

The editors of Nowhere to Be Home have somehow managed to bring a novelist's (or fiction editor's) sensibility to the spoken word. The accounts compiled here, mostly from those who have fled Burma, are quite long, yet have been edited in such a way as to keep in mind flow, narrative arc and even voice, albeit not including the many verbal eccentricities that can grate in oral histories of this kind. For that, the editors should be congratulated, but the limitations of the genre remain clear: with only transcripts to go by (in addition to short introductions), much of the most gratifying nuance is lost. Some of the most touching stories here are of seemingly fond memories of the good times back home in Burma – but are such reminiscences being recalled with a twinkle in the eye? A broad grin? A slight grimace? A catch in the voice? A haunted look? Only the interviewers know. (Carey L Biron)