Abstract
“If you want to write a real Burmese story”, U Nu once told an audience of Burmese writers, you “must know the real Burmese background”. It is advice that applies to foreign as well as indigenous writers and, in most cases, non-Burmese writers have followed it. The recommendation is important because fiction provides a popular entryway for the “average” reader to reach beyond his normal range of knowledge and imagination; it is more likely that he will have read a novel or short story rather than a history or a scholarly work and it is from this source that he will have formed his ideas and adopted his stereotypes. Thus, it is necessary that the available literature is good, that it is accurate in its descriptions of the locale and the behaviour of the people, that it catches the nuance of local speech and expression, that it reflects the psychology of the subjects when it discusses them rather than imputing alien speech, values, and attitudes.
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