<p>Inspired by Chicago journalist Studs Terkel&rsquo;s accounts of the hopes and dreams of ordinary Americans, Rangoon-based writer Mya Than Tint introduces us to 34 of Burma&rsquo;s fifty four million &lsquo;ordinary people&rsquo;, the <em>a-nya-ta-ra</em>. As he travelled through Burma on literary lecture tours in the late 1980s, he encountered porters, sailors, fortune-tellers, waitresses, artists and petty criminals &lsquo;on the road to Mandalay&rsquo;. Their stories were published in Burma in <em>Kalya</em> magazine. Himself a prolific translator into Burmese of eastern and western classical works of literature, this is Mya Than Tint&rsquo;s first major work to have been translated into English&mdash;an inspiring read and itself now a classic.</p>