Publisher's Synopsis
Let us first share the beauty and mystery of this most delicately titled novel, 'Leik-p'ya', for it is here that our story begins. The Burmese word 'Leik-p'ya' is a homonym; it is the word for the beautifully-winged insect; it also means the soul. And since a majority of the people of Burma believe in reincarnation, or rebirth of the soul, the delicately titled 'Leik-p'ya' refers to the souls of those whose stories are immortalised in this book. Leik-p'ya! Immortal Butterflies is a work of biographical fiction. Spanning the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it is set in the Southeast Asian nation of Burma (Myanmar), a country whose independence from British rule was set in 1948. Leik-p'ya casts a rich, historic light on a nation and period long shrouded in mystery. Told through the experiences of a family whose lives span multiple generations, this epic drama bridges the exoticism of Burma's natives with the British rulers who sought to colonize it.
