You’ve Changed: Fake Accents, Feminism, and Other Comedies from Myanmar

In this arresting debut, War reflects on her dual lives spent in the U.S. and Myanmar to cleverly explore notions of home and identity. Born and raised in Myanmar in the 1990s, War attended an international school and, from a young age, straddled differing cultures and clashing expectations—a reality that only intensified when she moved to the states for college. In sparkling essays suffused with cutting humor, she recounts her experiences as a “young, female Myanmar writer”—which she wryly claims is her “unique selling point” and also her biggest obstacle: “The chances that a publisher would want to publish two ‘Myanmar books’... in one year [are] devastatingly slim.” In “A Me by Any Other Name,” she offers a historical and cultural explanation of the four names she goes by, while the beguiling “Laundry Load” delves into the Myanmar concept of “hpone”—which refers to “innate” powers men contain that can be “sapped” if their clothes come into contact with a woman’s. Elsewhere, a long-distance relationship that ended because War and her boyfriend “couldn’t get our paperwork in order” serves as a sharp critique of the absurdities of immigration laws that “hinge entirely on a wider societal belief in... imaginary lines in the earth.” This is intoxicating. (May)