YOU'VE CHANGED

In this debut essay collection, a writer from Myanmar explores topics ranging from baking to laundry through the lenses of race and immigration.

In two of the essays, War—who was born and raised in Yangon and now lives there after graduate work in England—relates the history of her relationship with her legal name, Moe Thet War, and her nickname, Pyae Pyae. Specifically, she recounts how Westerners, including her boyfriend, “Toothpick,” mispronounce her name and how she unknowingly began to mispronounce it herself. Writing about baking, War frankly discusses how the societal expectation that she should cook Myanmar food—which she doesn’t—complicates her positive and intuitive relationship with baking, which the author associates with White culture. “My top two bak­ing recipe sites…are run by beaming white women who ob­viously also own KitchenAid mixers and who have bak­ing in their blood,” she writes. In an essay on laundry, the author vividly describes her complex feelings about washing her clothes alongside her boyfriend’s clothes; she cites a belief in Myanmar of a “mystical power that men supposedly possess that is believed to be sapped if men’s clothes come in contact with women’s.” Exploring Myanmar’s obsession with rice, War reveals her struggle with years of being fat-shamed. The author’s voice balances humor and insight, and her views on race and identity are well reasoned, vulnerable, and unique. Particularly brilliant is her candid discussion of her conflicted feelings about writing about her heritage, which, at times, feels like a trap. “As a young teen artist whose Brownness seemed to follow me around like a second shadow,” she writes, “being the Myanmar writer who voluntarily wrote a novel set in Myanmar and featuring Myanmar characters seemed to me like an act of self-sabotage.” Like much of the book, this observation is intelligent, thought-provoking, poignant, and a delight to read.

A refreshingly honest, original exploration of personal identity and a culture that may be unfamiliar to American readers.