Event: Reading from historical memoir ‘Of Roots and Wings’

Sweeping historical memoirs about Myanmar are rare, especially in English.

That’s why you should spend the afternoon tomorrow listening to author Wai Wai Myaing read from “Of Roots and Wings,” an epic personal and family history of life in Yangon dating back to the colonial era.

The book is a follow-up to a first volume called “A Journey in Time,” and picks up around the end of World War II and the approach of independence in January of 1948, when Wai Wai Myaing was nine years old.

In the opening of the memoir, we find ourselves back in those days, decades ago.

“In the dim, early hours of a cool winter’s day, a line of official cars snaked its way out of the governor’s residence on Windsor Road, Rangoon. Elsewhere, citizens of the city tramped to the site downtown, talking exuberantly or in contained excitement, to witness an event which they would remember for the rest of their lives.”

You can read a longer sample here on Amazon.

The reading will be given at Myanm/art on the third floor of 98 Bogalay Zay Street, from 2pm to 4pm tomorrow (Saturday).