BRAVE NEW BURMA
By NIC DUNLOP
Nic Dunlop spent 20 years photographing Burma under military rule. His new book, Brave New Burma, is an intimate portrait in words and pictures of a country finally emerging from decades of dictatorship, isolation and fear.
From the frontlines of the civil war to deceptively tranquil cities, from the home of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to the lives of ordinary people struggling to survive, Brave New Burma is both an historic collection of rare images and a powerful exposé of Burma’s crisis.
Change has come to Burma for the first time in decades. But change brings dangers, including the erasing of history and the invention of a new Burma in appearance alone. Brave New Burma is a haunting record of a country now struggling to recreate itself.
Nic Dunlop is a Bangkok-based photographer and writer represented by Panos Pictures in London. His work has been published worldwide. In 1999, he received an award from the John Hopkins University for Excellence in International Journalism for his discovery and exposure of Pol Pot’s chief executioner Comrade Duch, a story told in his book, The Lost Executioner. He also co-directed Burma Soldier, an HBO film which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the United Nations Association Film Festival and nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing.
• Nic Dunlop will be in conversation with Fergal Keane at a special launch event 7pm, May 15th at The Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 1QJ.
• Award winning photographer, journalist and film-maker with over twenty years experience of working in Burma.
• Explores a country which has now become a major focus of Western media attention.
• It has never been more timely for a book of this kind. For the first time in decades there is talk of real change in Burma.
Author of The Lost Executioner: A Story of the Khmer Rouge (Bloomsbury, UK 2005; Walkerbooks, US 2006) a book about how he tracked down Khmer Rouge leader Comrade Duch. The book was the result of a research supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Dunlop exposed Kaing Guek Eav a.k.a. Comrade Duch, the former head of Democratic Kampuchea’s dreaded special branch – the Santebal. Duch was in hiding since the Khmer Rouge’s fall in 1979, and was wanted for his crimes in personally overseeing the systematic torture of more than 15,000 prisoners. Duch was later tried and found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity becoming the first former Khmer Rouge to be tried and sentenced by the UN-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Dunlop received an award from the Johns Hopkins University for Excellence in International Journalism, for exposing Duch.
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He also co-directed Burma Soldier, (with Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, produced by Julie Le Brocquy) an HBO film which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the United Nations Association Film Festival in 2011 and nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing the following year. The film tells the story of a former soldier of Burma’s regime who was badly injured in war, witnessed atrocities committed by his own comrades and spent 15 years in prison for his activism as a member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party.
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He co-authored War of the Mines (Pluto Press 1994) with Paul Davies, about the devastation caused by
landmines.
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“An outstanding photographer who is also a talented writer.”
– John Ryle, Financial Times
“Nic Dunlop’s pioneering work in Cambodia, documenting the scourge of landmines, is reinforced by
the dark grace of his pictures from Burma. They expose the slave labour imposed by the illegitimate
regime and illuminate the heroism of Aung San Suu Kyi and her pro-democracy comrades.”
– John Pilger
Clothbound hardback
225mm x 165mm
200 pages, 120 duotone photos
Designed by SMITH
ISBN: 9781907893315
£30.00 / $48.000
PUBLISHED MAY 2013