Karen Connelly is the author of seven books of poetry and nonfiction. In the mid-1990s she visited Burma numerous times until she was denied a visa by the military regime. She then lived for almost two years on the Thai-Burma border, among Burmese exiles and dissidents. She had already emerged on the Canadian publishing scene in her early twenties with the publication of Touch the Dragon: a Thai Journal, which won the Governor General Literary Award for Nonfiction in 1992. The same book was published in the US as Dream of a Thousand Lives, and was a New York Times Notable Travel Book of the Year in 2002. Her first book of poetry, The Small Words in My Body, won the Pat Lowther Award for best book of poetry by a Canadian woman. She is currently working on a book of explorations and encounters set in the refugee camps, border towns, and rebel army camps of the Thai-Burma border. Her first novel, The Lizard Cage (Random House, 2005) was nominated for the Kiriyama Prize in 2005. Her website can be found at www.karenconnelly.ca/.

Recent articles

Teza the singer is in solitary confinement. A political prisoner of the Burmese junta, his world is now his cage. Read an excerpt from Karen Connelly's powerful novel of humanity, shame and survival.