Not Out of Hate: A Novel of Burma

Not Out of Hate is Ma Ma Lay's fifth novel, set in 1939–42, and further cemented her status as one of twentieth-century Burma's foremost writers and voices for change. It is an engaging drama, finely observed work of social realism, and stirring rejection of Western cultural dominance.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 252 pages
Publication date: 19 August 2019
Publisher: Ohio University Press

Not Out of Hate, published in Burmese in 1955 and set in 1939-1942, was Ma Ma Lay's fifth novel and a significant contribution to twentieth-century Burmese literature. Lay's straightforward observational style, combined with compassion and purpose, brought the story of Way Way, a teenage village girl, to life. Way Way's quiet life is disrupted by the arrival of U Saw Han, a cosmopolitan Burmese rice trader twenty years her senior. Initially entranced by U Saw Han's Western furnishings, servants, and mannerisms, Way Way marries him. However, it soon becomes clear that U Saw Han's love is a stifling one that seeks to obliterate her traditional ways. Not Out of Hate was immensely popular in Burma and went through several editions in the 1950s and 1960s. When Ohio University Press published its English translation in 1991, it became the first significant fictional account of prewar Burma available in English since George Orwell's Burmese Days. Translated into English here for the first time, the novel is an engaging drama, finely observed work of social realism, and stirring rejection of Western cultural dominance.

Weight: 316g
Dimension: 142 x 216 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780896801677