Living Outside the Village

Ma Thanegi’s roots are deeply planted in Myanmar. She’s the great-niece of a noble scoundrel who once ornamented the court of King Thibaw, her country’s last king, and the great-granddaughter of one of the last queen’s ladies-in-waiting. The daughter of a sophisticated, mercurial intellectual and the brilliant, tempestuous beauty who was his wife, Ma Thanegi has spent her life in Myanmar with the ambition of revealing its beauties and virtues to the rest of the world. She’s achieved her goal through her writing, with six books written in English and published internationally, but until now her own story has been told only in fragments.

Living Outside the Village begins in the middle of the 20th century, with Ma Thanegi’s personal history intertwined with the history of modern Myanmar. The child who yearned to become an Apache warrior and the young girl who turned away from the love of her life to pursue the life of an artist was a sharp-eyed observer of the bloodshed and political changes that were taking place around her Yangon home. When at last she married a Myanmar diplomat, she briefly lived in Singapore, soaking up that city as avidly as her dignified social position would allow. After her marriage came to an amicable end, she returned to the bohemian life of a painter, which was interrupted when she spent over two years in a jail cell as a political prisoner.

Although she has left her country only for brief intervals, Ma Thanegi has led a life that’s vivid and filled to the brim with adventures. Whether she’s in the company of artists and jailbirds or hanging out with Anthony Bourdain, she’s never without an opinion or a provocative observation. Flouting convention and speaking the truth has been this lady’s creed since her early childhood, making Living Outside the Village a delightful, thoughtful journey through her extraordinary life and her country’s hidden history.