In the summer of 2015, an earthquake that strikes Nepal causes destruction and the entire Nepali community perishes in the catastrophe. Nineteen-year-old Laiza’s parents die in the disaster and she and her younger brother, Ratan are forced to move to Kathmandu with their uncle. The struggle to find resources and the strained relationship between Laiza and her aunt forces her to move to India. Once she reaches there Laiza stays with her aunt’s cousin, Rohit, as she looks for a better future and is subsequently hired as a lady’s maid by a high profile household that holds a dark secret. She soon finds herself trapped in a world she never imagined. While tackling with the sorrow of her past and present, Laiza finds friends where she least expects them- in the company of a Manipuri and a Ukrainian girl along with an Indian Army soldier of the Gorkha Regiment, whose father went missing in the Earthquake. Follow Laiza on her journey as a young woman who overcomes grief and learns to hold on to hope in the face of tragedy.

Rebel Politics analyzes the changing dynamics of the civil war in Myanmar, one of the most entrenched armed conflicts in the world. Since 2011, a national peace process has gone hand-in-hand with escalating ethnic conflict. The Karen National Union (KNU), previously known for its uncompromising stance against the central government of Myanmar, became a leader in the peace process after it signed a ceasefire in 2012. Meanwhile, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) returned to the trenches in 2011 after its own seventeen-year-long ceasefire broke down. To understand these puzzling changes, Brenner conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the KNU and KIO, analyzing the relations between rebel leaders, their rank-and-file, and local communities in the context of wider political and geopolitical transformations. Drawing on Political Sociology, Rebel Politics explains how revolutionary elites capture and lose legitimacy within their own movements and how these internal contestations drive the strategies of rebellion in unforeseen ways. Brenner presents a novel perspective that contributes to our understanding of contemporary politics in Southeast Asia, and to the study of conflict, peace and security, by highlighting the hidden social dynamics and everyday practices of political violence, ethnic conflict, rebel governance and borderland politics.

This book focuses on the tensions between and conflict resolution processes concerning minority ethnic groups in Myanmar’s rural areas and the State. It covers topics such as relations and communication between the central government, the Kokang Chinese community and the Kachin State; the impact of cyclone Nargis on remote settlements in the Ayeyarwady Delta; the impact of depletion of mangrove forests and Yangon’s fuel needs on a Karen minority group; and the collapse of a community forestry project in a Pa-O village in Shan State. Written by young scholars from Myanmar, some of whom belong to minority groups, the book provides firsthand reporting and scholarship that, for the past sixty years, have not been available. Offering in-depth, unique insights into minority change issues in the interior and at the periphery of Myanmar, as seen from local perspectives, it offers a valuable resource for academics, students and researchers in the fields of sustainable development, social and political studies, and development communication in Asia.

In South Florida, the constant heat keeps old wounds from ever healing in corpses that are never found. Instead, the open wounds of the victims become infected and fester over time. The ensuing fever in the dead bodies that are never laid to rest causes the mind of the living to act irrationally, and the soul also becomes contaminated as a result. There are only two cures. One can be institutionalized in the Kreskie Institute, the largest mental health facility in the Southeastern United States, or they can seek revenge. Join the small band of individuals from the coastal city of Morninglory by the Beach and the newly constructed town of Harbour Village who reluctantly team together to find the truth. Their individual interests in discovering the truth is the only thing that stops them from tearing apart their new partnership. When you’re not sure you can even trust your own partner, how can you believe in coma patients committing murders, talking dogs, crooked politicians, ambitious law enforcement officials, messengers from God, and the high priestess of Harbour Village. At the Kreskie Institute, the only thing visible to the naked eye that separates the administration from the patients is the clothes that they wear. The best advice to visitors and employees to the Kreskie Institute is to dress well because it is much more difficult to tell the truth from a lie, and the nearest help is miles away through the swampland of the Spooky Isles. No one can hear you if you scream for help, and even if they could hear you, would they believe you?