Point of View

The first two parts of the book are in Aung San Suu Kyi's voice. The essays in the third part of the book are about her. The exception is Section 21 (the end of the second part), which contains the words of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, explaining its reasons for awarding her its Peace Prize in 1991.

Setting

This thwarted popular struggle for independence and multi-party democracy occurred in Burma during the late 1980s.

Language and Meaning

The book was first published in English and soon translated into other languages. Aung San Suu Kyi is bilingual: her essays about her father, Burma, and the Burmese people were written in English. Her political speeches, interviews, and essays were in Burmese (she translated a few into English herself). Burma is a country where over 100 languages are spoken, Burmese foremost. In a particularly scholarly essay, Aung San Suu Kyi examined how...