"Burma was a country in great flux during the first half of the twentieth century, being directly or indirectly affected by two World Wars, suffering the occupation of two imperial powers, and rocked by the agitation for— and eventual achievement of— independence in 1948. The post-independence era was no less tumultuous than that which came before, with intense political machinations and the crushing commencement of intractable civil wars, culminating in General Ne Win?s military coup of 1962 and concomitant wider societal changes. Miss Burma, a new novel by Charmaine Craig, faculty member in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside, attempts to take the reader deep into this heady world by focusing on the fate and fortunes of one particular family through the years of 1926-1965..."