Emma_Larkin
Emma Larkin
American journalist
Emma Larkin is the pseudonym[1] of an American journalist and author. Born in The Philippines to an American mother, her family moved to Thailand when she was one year old, where she lived for the next nine years. At least part of this time was spent in Bangkok, where she now lives.[2] Larkin was educated in the UK from the age of ten,[3] going on to study the Burmese language at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Larkin has given conflicting accounts of her early years: in 2010, she told New Statesman that she has lived in Thailand her whole life.[1]
She has been visiting Burma since around the year 2000.[4] Here she covers the military dictatorship that rules the country.[5] She is known for her coverage of Myanmar and George Orwell's experience within it in her debut book, Finding George Orwell in Burma. Speaking to the Democratic Voice of Burma, Larkin stated that she began that book in 2002 and travelled back and forth between Bangkok and Myanmar over the next two or three years. The only way this could be accomplished at the time was by fraudulently using business visas that entitled her to stay in Myanmar for months at a time. As a cover story to hide her journalistic work in the country, she received business visas under the pretext of studying the Burmese language. Despite engaging a tutor and taking great pains to appear legitimate, she reported being followed by undercover police.[6] Her book, which has elements of biography, travelogue, and investigative reporting, argues that Orwell did not only write one book about his time in Burma, but that Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four were based on his experiences as a police officer in colonial Burma. In addition, these two dystopian novels uniquely prophecised what life under the Burmese military dictatorship would be like: from the naming of government departments, to the idea that the government can control the past if the sharing and recording of individual recollections is forbidden.[7]
Her identity has been the subject of speculation. The fact that the US edition of Finding George Orwell in Burma retained the spelling of the British edition has led to speculation that Larkin may be British or Anglo-Burmese.[8] Larkin has stated that she uses a pseudonym primarily to protect the identities of her sources in Myanmar, a strategy which had been successful as of 2010. She spoke of the paranoia that affects foreign writers in Myanmar due to the constant surveillance and possibility of being searched at any time. This paranoia led her to destroy written notes or pass them to others who are leaving the country.[9]
