Twilight over Burma

August 29, 1994
Sargent's sad, exotic story survives her deeply flawed telling of it, but she would have been better advised to stick with a straightforward memoir. While at school in Colorado in the early '50s, the Austrian-born author met and married fellow student Sao Kya Seng. Because he wanted a wife who would marry him ``for the right reasons,'' Sao chose not to tell Inge he was prince of Hsipaw, one of 34 independent Shan states in northeastern Burma (although the convertible Nash Rambler and the ruby-and-diamond engagement ring might have tipped her off.) For eight years the couple presided over the modernization of their small state, sadly unaware of the weak poltical leadership plaguing Burma since the 1947 assassination of General Aung San (father of jailed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi). Then in 1962, General Ne Win seized power and Sao disappeared. Shadowed by Ne Win's men, Sargent waited desperately for news of her husband, until two years later friends convinced her to escape to Austria. Sargent's descriptions of life in the small, tropical state and of her machinations to smuggle out her daughters (both Burmese citizens) are strong enough to withstand her unconvincing re-creation of decades-old dialogue (even extensive sections on the vanished Sao's unknowable last thoughts) and the near-fatal decision to write in third person. Much of the book smacks of writing school exercises and the gutsy author often seems self-indulgent in descriptions of herself: ``this attractive and unusual girl had constantly been on his mind. Her warmth, her cheerfulness, and her poise made him long for her company.''

September 1, 1994
When Inge Eberhard married a Burmese student she met in Colorado, she had no idea of the incredible future awaiting her as a princess. Unbeknownst to the young Austrian woman at the time, the man she called Sao would reveal himself to be a prince and the beloved leader of an ethnically diverse Shan state upon their arrival in Burma. In a stirring tribute to a remarkable man--and a gripping tale from beginning to end--Sargent reflects back on her loving, cross-cultural marriage to the prince of Hsipaw, with whom she had two children, a marriage that prospered until the disappearance of Sao Kya Seng during the 1962 coup d'etat and takeover by dictator Ne Win. Although the prince was never seen again, Sargent manages to illuminate the harsh conditions in Burma over the last quarter-century in a touching memoir that would read like a fairy tale were it not for the unfortunate ending. ((Reviewed September 1, 1994))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1994, American Library Association.)