'THERE WAS A man across the road painting the wall of his house,' says Emma Larkin of her first visit to Myanmar in 1995, and a trip to dissident Aung San Suu Kyi's house to hear her speak. 'A small group of people was also standing there, like they were waiting for a bus.
'Suddenly, there were these whistles and this truck comes barrelling out of University Avenue. They beat this small gathering of people and push them into the truck and drive off. Then it's all silence again and there's just this man painting the wall of his house. I couldn't help wondering whether what I had just seen actually happened.'
After a brief pause, Larkin's voice over the telephone from London continues. 'Burma [Myanmar] is like that. Everywhere you go,' she says.
Larkin, now in her mid-30s, has been back to Myanmar many times since that first visit, trying to sift reality from the illusion conjured by one of the oldest existing military dictatorships. Most recently, she spent a year travelling the country, visiting places where George Orwell had lived, while serving as a policeman in the 1920s in what was then British Burma. The result is Secret Histories - Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop (John Murray).
The book draws on the experiences and observations of the Myanmese, and in the interests of protecting their safety, Larkin asks that certain details about her life be withheld. 'I hope you don't think I'm being overly paranoid,' she says.
It can be safely said that Larkin's life has been unusual. Her parents made Asia their home many decades ago. Her father worked in finance, her mother in academia. She was born in Asia, grew up in Bangkok, went to boarding school in England, and studied Myanmese at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She was fascinated by the swirls and circles of its writing, and entranced by Rudyard Kipling's depictions of the exotic east.