Synopsis "The Long Path to Wisdom: Tales From Burma (in English)"
From the author of the internationally bestselling The Art of Hearing Heartbeats series, comes this charming collection of folktales that offers a window into Burma's fascinating history and culture.Since 1995 Jan-Philipp Sendker has visited Myanmar (Burma) dozens of times, and while doing research for his novels The Art of Hearing Heartbeats and A Well-Tempered Heart, he encountered numerous folktales and fables. These moving stories speak to the rich mythology of the diverse peoples of Burma, the spirituality of humankind, and the profound social impact of Buddhist thought. Some are so strange he couldn't classify them or identify a familiar moral, while others reminded him of the fairy tales of his childhood, except that here monkeys, tigers, elephants, and crocodiles inhabited the fantastic lands instead of hedgehogs, donkeys, or geese. Their morals resemble those of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen, illustrating how all cultures draw on a universal wisdom to create their myths.This publication began when Lorie Karnath approached German novelist Jan Philipp Sendker about her idea of recording some of the stories she had collected over the past two decades from her travels to Myanmar.Sendker had also spent time in this mystical country and had written two novels based in the country. Liking the idea, the pair then set aboutwriting the The Long Path to Wisdom, Sendker's son Jonathan who hadrecently spent some time to Burma also contributed a number of the tales to the publication. The result is a book of Burmese stories and legends some of which may have never been recorded in English. The storieswhich to some may seem similar in spirit to Western styled fairy tales,are different in that they served a different role, in many casesrepresent pieces of the oral history of the different tribal groups that make up the country. The stories are intertwined with references to the natural as well as the supernatural world. They have been passed downthrough the generations some to help explain the laws of natural worldand its phenomenon as well as to help with the wide-array of moralchoices that each individual must face along their chosen path. Thestories are filled with superstition and speak about love and loss, ofsuffering and happiness, revenge, and justice, oftentimes humorously.Each conveys a circumstance and lesson, some easily apparent whileothers require more consideration to recognize the wisdom that theseimpart.The Long Path to Wisdom's evocative stories run the gamut of human emotions, from the familiar to the shocking, and are sure to delight fans of The Art of Hearing Heartbeats as well as those newly discovering the magic of Sendker's incandescent writing.
