Voice of Hope: Conversations with Alan Clements [Hardcover]

Aung San Suu Kyi (Author), Alan Clements (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 7, 1997

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize Laureate, mother of two, and devout Buddhist, is one of the most inspiring examples of spiritually infused politics and fearless leadership that the world has ever seen. Daughter of the martyred Burmese national hero who negotiated Burma's independence from Britain in the 1940s, Aung San Suu Kyi led the pro-democracy movement in Burma in 1988. The movement was quickly and brutally crushed by the military junta, and Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest.
The Voice of Hope is a rare and intimate journey to the heart of her struggle. Over a period of nine months, Alan Clements, the first American ordained as a Buddhist monk in Burma, met with Aung San Suu Kyi shortly after her release from her first house arrest in July 1995. With her trademark ability to speak directly and compellingly, she presents here her vision of engaged compassion and describes how she has managed to sustain her hope and optimism.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, or the Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi has become an international symbol of struggle against repression and brutality. In The Voice of Hope, she emerges as a human being--a mother of two sons as well as an inspirational human rights advocate and all-around moral compass. Once a soft-spoken scholar living in England, this daughter of a Burmese military hero catapulted to prominence as the spokesperson for her country's beleaguered democracy movement. Even when imprisoned by Burma's ruling junta, she continued to work for freedom and human rights, eventually winning the Nobel Peace Prize and attracting the world's attention to the plight of Burmese dissidents. The Voice of Hope chronicles nine months' worth of her conversations with British-born Alan Clements, a Burma expert and former Buddhist monk. The two discuss love, truth, power, compassion, and freedom from fear as well as Aung San Suu Kyi's own brand of activist Buddhism. In the process, a portrait emerges of a profoundly religious as well as political leader, a woman who used years of house arrest to develop her meditative practice, mindfulness, and spiritual strength.

Review

The dialogues express Aung San Suu Kyi's humor, erudition, wisdom and accessibility, and demonstrate why she has become a world spiritual leader. -- The New York Times Book Review, Judith Shapiro

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press (October 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888363509
• ISBN-13: 978-1888363500
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #965,613 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book can be transformational, October 17, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voice of Hope: Conversations with Alan Clements (Hardcover)

I have been intrigued with the situation in Burma since watching the movie Beyond Rangoon some time ago. It was therefore with great interest that I ordered this book as soon as it was available. In "The Voice of Hope" Alan Clements brings us into the present with this tragic situation through the person of Aung San Suu Kyi and her incredible life. But what sets this work apart from histories, biographies, and oddly enough even self-help material - is the powerful integration of beliefs and action found in Aung San Suu Kyi's life and philosophy. In reading chapter seven alone, ("Saints are Sinners who go on trying") I was personally and deeply moved by the clear connectedness described between her experience with a repressive government and the need for thinking people everywhere to courageously fulfil our potential as thinking, "questing" individuals. The repressive government in Burma is shown to be an extreme and yet still relevant metaphor for intellectual repression in all its forms. And Aung San Suu Kyi's message offers specific insight together with believable emotional support for those who struggle to reconcile what we discover and know through our own searching with what we are expected to believe by others. If it helps anyone who is deciding whether this book is worth the money - I can only say that as one who buys and reads more than 100 books a year - this book has earned a unique place in my library and in my heart. I would trade every other book I have read this year for Alan Clements' latest contribution. Thank you.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars unbelievably powerful, inspirational, a true gift, August 27, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voice of Hope: Conversations with Alan Clements (Hardcover)

This book shocked me awake to the realities of countries where freedom is not enjoyed as in the United Sates. The government's repression and horrific inhumantiy are just unbelievable. But, more amazing is the dedication to nonviolence which Aung San Suu Kyi and her party follow in their democracy movement. Her manner in speaking of Burma's serious situation is so calm, hopeful, and loving that it makes one reinterpret and recast their interactions with their own worlds. One may also reflect on one's place in humanity and see that Burma's tragedy, Burma's fate, is our own and we must act now. Aung San's hope and strength are qualities we would do well to adopt as our own. I do not think it is possible for one to read this book and NOT feel urged to take some form of real action (via letter writing, publicizing the issue, etc).

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful writings from Burma's living hope, December 1, 2001

By 

Maurizio Giuliano (Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Voice of Hope: Conversations with Alan Clements (Paperback)

In this book, as in "Freedom from Fear" and "Letters from Burma", Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi exposes to the world the grim realities of her land and her people, seen through her very eyes. As always, she is able to jump with great ability from more personal and sentimental accounts of the situation, to hard data, from recollections of her childhood, to perspectives on Burma's future. Always filled with thrill and dense with emotions, her writings are for the expert and the ignorant alike, easy to understand, yet of high value historically and academically. For anyone wishing to know more about Burma and the struggle of her people for human rights, this is must reading.