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  • New Zealand Listener

    On the Burma trail

    Apr 15, 2024 2 minutes

    BURMA SAHIB

    by Paul Theroux (Hamish Hamilton, $37)

    Expert opinion is divided on why a teenaged Eric Blair decided to become an imperial police officer in Burma rather than go up from Eton College to the University of Oxford. One biographer, Gordon Bowker, suggested the young Blair wanted to leave his “demons” in England and explore his “dark side”. Others, such as John Sutherland, say Blair, at 19, sought adventure

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