Lintner, Bertil 1953–

(Bertil Arvid Lintner)

PERSONAL:

Born January 5, 1953, in Katrineholm, Sweden; son of Julius and Birgitta Lintner; married Hseng Noung; children: Hseng Tai (daughter). Education: Attended University of Uppsala, 1975. Politics: "I'm not a member of any political party, nor a supporter of any specific political grouping." Religion: Buddhist. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, fishing, hiking.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Chiang Mai, Thailand. Office—Asia Pacific Media Services, Ltd., G.P.O. Box 79, Chiang Mai 50000, Thailand. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Freelance journalist, 1979-88; Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong, China, Burma correspondent, 1988-2004; Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm, Sweden, East Asia correspondent, 1995—; Asia Pacific Media Services, Ltd., Chiang Mai, Thailand, writer, 2003—; Jane's Information Group, Coulsdon, England, senior analyst, 2004—. Politiken, Southeast Asia correspondent, 1995-2003; occasional contributor to CPA Media; documentaries, reports, and interviews have aired on radio and television networks, including al-Jazeera, American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Australian Broadcasting Commission, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Cable News Network (CNN), Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Christian Science Monitor Radio, Christian Science Monitor Television, CNN Television Agency, Danish Television, Deutsche Welle, National Public Radio (NPR), Netherlands Television, Radio Australia, Radio Finland, Radio France International, Radio Hong Kong, Radio Netherlands, Radio Norway, Radio Sweden, Swedish Television, Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, Thai Television, Vatican Radio, and Voice of America. Consultant to BBC, Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Human Rights Watch, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Radio Free Asia, and Southeast Asian Press Alliance.

MEMBER:

Asia Society (nonresident associate fellow), Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (president, 1993-95).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Grants from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 1992-93, 1997-98, and 2003-05; Award for Editorial Excellence, Society of Publishers in Asia, 2004.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(With others) Miraklet i Asean: Fup eller fakta? (in Danish; title means "The ASEAN Miracle: Fact or Fiction?"), Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke (Copenhagen, Denmark), 1984.

Outrage: Burma's Struggle for Democracy, Review Publishing (Hong Kong, China), 1989.

Rejsen til jadelandet (in Danish), Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke (Copenhagen, Denmark), 1989, translation published as Land of Jade: A Journey through Insurgent Burma, Kiscadale Publications (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1990, 2nd edition published as Land of Jade: A Journey from India through Northern Burma to China, White Orchid Press (Bangkok, Thailand), 1996.

The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), 1990.

The Golden Triangle (audiobook), narrated by Richard C. Hottelet, Knowledge Products (Nashville, TN), 1992.

Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency since 1948, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1994, 2nd edition, revised and updated, Silkworm Books (Chiang Mai, Thailand), 1999.

The Kachin: Lords of Burma's Northern Frontier, Asia Film House (Chiang Mai, Thailand), 1997.

(With others) The Right to Know: Access to Information in Southeast Asia, edited with introduction by Sheila S. Coronel, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (Quezon City, Philippines), 2001.

Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2002, published as Blood Brothers: Crime, Business, and Politics in Asia, Silkworm Books (Chiang Mai, Thailand), 2002.

Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korea under the Kim Clan, Silkworm Books (Chiang Mai, Thailand), 2005.

Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for Democracy (in Korean), Asia Network/Prunsoop (Seoul, South Korea), 2007.

Contributor to books, including Asia Yearbook, 1985 and 1988-2002; Internationalization of Ethnic Conflict, edited by K.M. de Silva and R.J. May, 1991; Drugs, Death, Disease: Reporting on AIDS in Southeast Asia, edited by Cecile C.A. Balgos, 2001; Bangladesh: Treading the Taliban Trail, edited by Jaideep Saikia, 2006; and Ethnic Diasporas and Great Power Strategies in India, edited by Robert G. Wirsing and Rouben Azizian, 2007.

Also contributor to more than one hundred periodicals, including Arabia, Asian Analysis, Asian Studies Review, Asia-Pacific, Bangkok Post, Corriere della Serra, Courrier International, Der Spiegel Reporter, Der Überblick, Die Tageszeitung, Global Asia, Global Dialogue, Grazia, Independent (London, England), India Today, International Defense Review, International Herald Tribune, Internationella Studier, Jane's Defence Weekly, Japan Economic Journal, Journal of Oriental Studies, Kontakt, Los Angeles Times, Muhibah, New York Times Book Review, NRC Handelsblad, Phnom Penh Post, Populär Historia, Reader's Digest, Stavanger Aftenblad, Sunday Telegraph, Suomen Kuvalehti, Sydney Morning Herald, Thailand Times, Times of India, Tokyo Journal, Vivant Univers, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Also contributor to online publications, including Asia Times Online and Yale Global.

SIDELIGHTS:

An international traveler since his teens, Swedish journalist Bertil Lintner has established himself as one of the West's most respected reporters on the Asian world. He has lived in Thailand since 1980 and has written numerous books and hundreds of articles in his field. In a Library Journal review, Charles W. Hayford noted that Lintner "is respected both for his reporting from the field and for his shrewd insights."

One of Lintner's earliest interests was Burma, Thailand's western neighbor. The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) is one of several books he has produced about that country. Michael W. Charney, reviewing the work for the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, regarded it as "an unusually effective study" which "should aid scholars of Burmese history in their analyses not only of Burma's past, but also of contemporary Burma." Charney commented on Lintner's balanced treatment and thorough documentation and concluded that "one today finds few scholars better equipped or more determined to paint an accurate picture of modern Burma than Lintner."

Lintner takes a broader look at Asian society in his 2002 book Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia, examining criminal groups in Shanghai, Macau, Japan, the Russian Far East, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, Australia, and the United States. Each chapter focuses on a particular region and draws on extensive literature to support its description and analysis. An Economist critic described it as "a useful guide that looks beneath the surface of these criminal groups, tracing their history back to the 19th century and speculating on their prospects for the future." Reviewer Hua-Lun Huang in Crime, Law and Social Change called it "an excellent book" with several strengths, notably Lintner's use of a "cross-societal method to explicate the social contexts in which Asian underground syndicates operate" and his inclusion of "several ‘unorthodox’ topics of Asian crime." Huang expressed disappointment in some aspects of the book, including what the critic deemed a lack of a theoretical framework with which to analyze cases of Asian crime and inadequate coverage of Taiwan, but Huang maintained that it is nonetheless a "masterpiece" and a "milestone in the field of Asian crime research."

In his next book, Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korea under the Kim Clan, Lintner provides a journalistic, topical account of North Korea from the 1940s to the present. It is "an extremely useful summary of the history and structure of North Korea," according to Hayford. Writing for the Journal of Contemporary Asia, Taejoon Han claimed that there was "nothing to ‘demystify’ about North Korea" but acknowledged that the book "could be a highly useful resource" for those not already familiar with the country. Historian reviewer Xiaobing Li felt that both students and scholars would benefit from Lintner's inclusion of new resource materials and new interpretations; Li considered the book "a welcome addition to the contemporary literature on the North Korean regime with an in-depth analysis of its leaders' mentalities and the party's determination."

Lintner told CA: "I have always been interested in writing. I learned to read and write when I was three and later was the editor of a junior high school magazine in Falun, Sweden, as well as editor of a senior high school magazine in the same town. My first articles in a daily newspaper (Falu-Kurirer, Falun) appeared in 1973. It was a series of articles about my search for Dracula in Transylvania, Romania. When I in 1975 left Sweden to travel in Asia, I wrote ‘letters from…’ for the same local newspaper in Sweden. Since 1980, I have been making a living as a writer. I have always been a writer in one form or another. The most surprising thing I have learned as a writer is the power of the written word, the impact a story or a book can have on public opinion—and decision makers. But that also means a tremendous responsibility. A writer has to get his or her facts right.

"Writers who have influenced me include Arthur Koestler, V.S. Naipaul, documentary filmmaker Adrian Cowell (who has made several documentaries about the Golden Triangle opium trade), and journalists such as the late Tiziano Terzani (Italian—wrote for Der Spiegel until he passed away in 2004)."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Asian Affairs, October, 1990, John Bary, review of Outrage: Burma's Struggle for Democracy, p. 354; February, 1996, Jonathan Price, review of Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency since 1948, p. 1162.

Chiangmai Mail, February 5-11, 2005, "Bertil Lintner."

Choice, February, 2004, H.T. Wong, review of Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia, p. 1162.

Crime, Law and Social Change, April, 2004, Hua-Lun Huang, review of Blood Brothers, p. 293.

Current History, March, 1990, Debra E. Soled, review of Outrage, p. 125.

Economist, May 17, 2003, "Love, Money and Revenge: Asia's Criminal Underworld," p. 75.

Far Eastern Economic Review, October 11, 1990, John McBeth, review of Land of Jade: A Journey through Insurgent Burma, p. 64; December 13, 1990, Michael Williams, review of The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), p. 38; December 24, 1992, review of Land of Jade and Outrage, p. 44; April 20, 1995, review of Burma in Revolt, p. 67; July-August, 2005, David C. Kang, review of Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korea under the Kim Clan, p. 66.

Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, winter-spring, 1996, Vincent O'Neil, review of Burma in Revolt, pp. 181-184.

Geographical Journal, July, 1991, review of Land of Jade, p. 225.

Historian, winter, 2006, Xiaobing Li, review of Great Leader, Dear Leader, p. 418.

Journal of Asian Studies, November, 1991, James F. Guyot, review of The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), p. 998; November, 2005, Youngshik Bong, review of Great Leader, Dear Leader, p. 1041.

Journal of Contemporary Asia, August, 2006, Taejoon Han, review of Great Leader, Dear Leader, p. 856.

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, September, 1998, Michael W. Charney, review of The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), p. 405.

Journal of Third World Studies, spring, 1997, Thomas D. Reins, review of Burma in Revolt, p. 167.

Library Journal, July 1, 2005, Charles W. Hayford, review of Great Leader, Dear Leader, p. 100.

Pacific Affairs, fall, 1992, Bruce Matthews, review of The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), p. 429.

Reference & Research Book News, May, 1995, review of Burma in Revolt, p. 8.

Times Higher Education Supplement, July 21, 1995, Bill Clements, review of Burma in Revolt, p. 24.

Times Literary Supplement, July 6, 1990, Peter Carey, review of Outrage, p. 717; March 8, 1991, Peter Simms, review of Land of Jade, p. 23.