Emma Larkin is the pseudonym 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 has lived as an adult since at least 2003.[1] [2] Larkin was educated in the UK from the age of ten,[3] and in 1999 completed a Master's degree in Southeast Asian History from London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, where she also studied the Burmese language.[4] Larkin has given conflicting accounts of her early years: in 2010, she told New Statesman that she has lived in Thailand her whole life.[5]
Her first trip to Burma was in 1995,[6] and she started visiting Burma as a journalist since around the year 2000,[7] when, from her base in Bangkok, Larkin began researching and reporting on the military dictatorship that rules the country.[8] 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. 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 when the sharing and recording of individual recollections is forbidden.[9]
As a result, Larkin's self-reported behaviour in Finding George Orwell in Burma has been called "both anxious and courageous".[10] Despite overall positive reviews of the book,[11] it has been criticised as "a nostalgic search for a lost Burma"[12] in which Larkin creates an "ambiguous space... for British colonialism" and "involuntarily makes colonialism more palatable than the sheerly evil current regime".
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.[13] Audio recordings of her voice confirm that she speaks with an English accent. Larkin has stated that, despite wishing to publish under her real name, she used a pseudonym primarily to protect the identities of her sources in Myanmar. Because she was obliged to fill in forms using her real name to board buses and trains and stay in hotels, the regime would have been able to piece together where she had been and who she had spoken to.[14] This strategy 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.[15] In 2021, her photograph was printed alongside a short biography in the back matter of her novel.[16]
Her first book, Finding George Orwell, won the Borders Original Voices Award for Non-Fiction in 2005 and was short-listed for the Index on Censorship's Freedom of Expression Award 2005. In 2006, the book won the Mainichi Shimbun's Asia Pacific Grand Prix Award.[18] This book has been taught at university level and has been the subject of academic analysis.