New novel seeks to bring international attention back to Myanmar’s crisis

Mizzima

With Myanmar’s political crisis and civil war grinding into its fifth year, a new novel seeks to thrust the country’s devastating struggle back into international view.

Written by French author Jak Bazino, Breaking the Cycle is billed as the first work of fiction to chronicle Myanmar’s Spring Revolution, weaving it into a dual-timeline narrative that spans the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942 and the present-day conflict following the 2021 military coup.

Set for publication on 1 February 2026 – the five-year anniversary of the military’s coup – the novel follows two protagonists separated by eight decades but bound by a shared quest. As Japan invades Burma in 1942, a young British archaeologist uncovers a tablet pointing to sacred Buddhist relics the discover of which could reshape the country’s political future. In 2024, amid air strikes and repression, a doctor fighting with Chin resistance forces finds the same artefact in the wreckage of a downed aircraft and sets out across a fractured nation to complete the mission.

Bazino, who lived in Myanmar for more than a decade and witnessed the 2021 coup firsthand, said the book was driven by frustration at the world’s fading attention. “The world has largely forgotten Myanmar’s ongoing crisis,” he wrote in an author’s statement. He describes the novel as an attempt to render the country’s complexity through individual human experience.

Advance reviewers with deep ties to the country have praised the book’s ambition. Esther Htusan, a former Associated Press correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner, called it “more than a war novel,” highlighting its exploration of legacy, resistance and hope amid recurring cycles of violence.

Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) news director Khin Maung Soe described it as a rare work for its blending of fiction with documented historical reality, while fostering empathy for Myanmar’s people through the placing of their struggle within the broader human condition.

Published by Chinthe House, Breaking the Cycle addresses themes ranging from colonial legacies and nearly forgotten World War II campaigns to women’s roles in resistance movements and the psychological toll of conflict.

Through his novel, Bazino makes the argument that Myanmar’s fate is not isolated but echoes other global struggles against authoritarianism, but this time, the cycle might finally be broken.