Background
Wendy Law-Yone was born on April 1, 1947, in Mandalay, Burma, now Myanmar, but was raised in Rangoon. She is the daughter of Edward Law-Yone, a political activist and a newspaper publisher.
Wendy Law-Yone, journalist, writer, author.
Wendy Law-Yone, journalist, writer, author.
Wendy Law-Yone, journalist, writer, author.
Wendy Law-Yone, journalist, writer, author.
4200 54th Ave S, St. Petersburg, FL 33711, United States
Wendy Law-Yone earned a Bachelor of Arts from Eckerd College.
(Wendy Law-Yone opens her first novel with the phrase of a...)
Wendy Law-Yone opens her first novel with the phrase of a survivor, "Living things prefer to go on living." A young woman and her older half-brother are expelled from their home in Burma by a savage political coup. Sent to elusive safety in America, the motherless siblings find themselves engulfed by the indifference, hypocrisy, and cruelty of an American society unable to deal with difference. Her brother's death drives the unnamed narrator into the seclusion of a mental hospital, where memories of her childhood and the strength it ingrained in her are enough to heal her heart and return her to the outside world.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/039452957X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i3
1983
(In a novel that spans five decades, a tango-dancing Asian...)
In a novel that spans five decades, a tango-dancing Asian beauty rises from her close-knit village life and impulsively marries a powerful military man, who will become her country's dictator.
https://www.amazon.com/Irrawaddy-Tango-Wendy-Law-Yone/dp/0679421920/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Irrawaddy+Tango&qid=1601926101&s=books&sr=1-1
1993
(Na Ga was always in search of a better life. But now she ...)
Na Ga was always in search of a better life. But now she sits, alone, in a hotel room in Wanting, a godforsaken town on the Chinese-Burmese border. Plucked from her wildlife as a rural eel-catcher, Na Ga is first abandoned by her would-be rescuers in Rangoon. Later, as a teenager, she finds herself chasing the dream of a new life in Thailand - where further betrayals and violations await. Yet it seems that her fighting spirit will not be broken.
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Wanting-Wendy-Law-Yone/dp/009953598X
2010
(Wendy Law-Yone was just fifteen when Burma's military sta...)
Wendy Law-Yone was just fifteen when Burma's military staged a coup and overthrew the civilian government in 1962. The daughter of Ed Law-Yone, the daredevil founder and chief editor of The Nation, Burma's leading postwar English-language newspaper, she experienced firsthand the perils and promises of a newly independent Burma. This memoir tells the twin histories of Law-Yone's kin and his country, a nation whose vicissitudes continue to intrigue the world.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K4JVSEE/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i1
2016
Wendy Law-Yone was born on April 1, 1947, in Mandalay, Burma, now Myanmar, but was raised in Rangoon. She is the daughter of Edward Law-Yone, a political activist and a newspaper publisher.
Wendy Law-Yone left Burma in 1967 after her father Edward Michael Law-Yonewas imprisoned for five years by the late dictator Ne Win. Wendy Law-Yone was banned from attending school and was imprisoned for two weeks after an attempt to flee the country. Eventually, she was able to leave Burma and at first lived in South East Asia, i.e. Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. Law-Yone moved to the United States in 1973. She studied Comparative Literature and Modern Languages at Eckerd College. Wendy Law-Yone earned a Bachelor of Arts from Eckerd College in 1975.
In 1975, Wendy Law-Yone became a writer for Washington Post. A scholarship she received from the University of East Anglia in 2002 brought her to the United Kingdom. She taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
Wendy Law-Yone describes the experience of exile in her novels The Coffin Tree (1983) and Irrawaddy Tango (1993). Although The Coffin Tree is a fictional story, it is clear that Law-Yone hones in on some of her own experiences of being displaced from a country who "disowned" her, and coming to a country where foreigners are often ostracized. The book is about a young woman who is brought up by a bitter and insane grandmother, as well as two flaky aunts, due to the absence of her father. Her father is off fighting for leftist political causes, which eventually lead to him becoming a target of the same party he worked to build up. Due to this, the family is sent to the hills to hide out for many years until a coup occurs. To keep the narrator and her half-brother, Shan, out of danger, they are sent off to the United States with no money and only one phone number, from which they only get a recording. The rest of the book chronicles the events that lead to Shan's eventual death and the narrator's insanity. The narrator tells the book from the mental hospital ward, as she relives the memories from her lifetime she has worked so hard to shut out.
Over ten years later Law-Yone delivered her second novel, titled Irrawaddy Tango. In this book, she writes of a young girl called Tango, who is named such for her dancing skill. When performing in a talent contest she is spotted by an official who quickly woos her and they marry shortly after. She spends several years under his rule, as he takes over the country known as Daya, until one day she is captured by rebel forces. She ends up being a voice for their cause and disowned by her husband. Her days with the rebel leader do not last long either, as she ends up being shipped off to the United States, where she faces a cruel existence. While in the United States, she marries a citizen who ultimately perishes at her psychotic hands. The theme of this book is how the perils in life can cause wounds so deep, they ultimately lead to psychosis. In an interview with Trescott, Law-Yone explained that in Asian countries, "The self is not important, it is the community that is important." Her novel shows how that mindset can send someone spiraling into the quagmire of self-hatred and discontent due to denying the needs of the individual. "It takes a certain kind of introspection to be an interesting character," she added.
In 2001 and 2012, Law-Yone returned each time for several months to her native country after over 30 years of exile to research her book, Golden Parasol: A Daughter's Memoir of Burma. The novel reconstructs the life of her father, the publisher of an influential newspaper forbidden during the dictatorship. Law-Yone uses her family's history to reflect her country's colonial and post-colonial history.
(In a novel that spans five decades, a tango-dancing Asian...)
1993(Wendy Law-Yone was just fifteen when Burma's military sta...)
2016(Wendy Law-Yone opens her first novel with the phrase of a...)
1983(Na Ga was always in search of a better life. But now she ...)
2010Wendy Law-Yone's first husband was an American journalist. They divorced in 1975. Her second husband is Charles Aloysius O'Connor III, an attorney. Wendy Law-Yone has four children: twins from the first marriage, and two children from the second marriage.