Double Karma

By Daniel Gawthrop

Curiosity about his father’s homeland sends American photographer Min Lin to Burma to immerse himself in its culture and build his portfolio. But it’s 1988 and pro-democracy activists are trying to overthrow the military regime. Min gets caught up in the movement after falling in love with one of its leaders. When she’s arrested, Min flees to the jungle and, joining the rebels, comes face-to-face on the battlefield with a Burmese army captain who looks exactly like him. After an explosion kills his double, Min awakes in a hospital misidentified as a hero of the regime, causing him to pose as the dead soldier for his own survival.

Escaping in 1990, he returns to Los Angeles, where he builds a new life based on his acceptance of his homosexuality while adjusting to the shock of discovering his father’s secret history in Burma. Decades later, a new wave of religious persecution and ethno-nationalism in the country now known as Myanmar compels him to return. Still haunted by the events of ’88, and knowing his ex-girlfriend is to be released from prison, Min must come to terms with his actions while seeking the truth about the double he met on a battlefield a lifetime ago.

“A vivid, passionate and compassionate page-turner in which political turmoil and oppression acts as an unwitting catalyst for self-realization. The ongoing situation in Myanmar lends Daniel Gawthrop's novel continuing relevance and poignancy. Compelling, imaginative, timely, and gutsy.”
— C.E. Gatchalian, Author of Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty, and the Making of a Brown Queer Man

Paperback, 328 pages
Published by Cormorant Books (Apr 2023)
ISBN-13: 9781770866836
Dimensions: 13.97 x 2.54 x 21.59 cm