The general secretary of the Burmese National League for Democracy, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is perhaps the world's most famous dissident. Her nonviolent campaign for democracy and human rights in a country that has been under a brutal military dictatorship for more than forty years has seen her, among other sacrifices, spend nine of the last 15 years in some form of detention; she is under house arrest at the time of writing, having been detained in May last year. She has been a tireless and selfless voice for her people since she began her political activism in August 1988, when she wrote an open letter to the military government calling for democratic multi-party elections. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the recipient of numerous honours, the subject of several biographies (1, 2, 3) and the author of, inter alia, Letters from Burma, Freedom from Fear and other writings, a biography of her father Aung San and children's books on Bhutan, Nepal and Burma.

A brief bio can be found here and an extensive one here. Free Burma has an excellent brief introduction to the modern history of Burma, including why you shouldn't call it "Myanmar" and how to pronounce "Aung San Suu Kyi". Wikipedia has a brief history beginning with the Mon kingdom around 300 BCE. I swiped the picture from the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi pages, where you can read speeches, articles, interviews, news and more. Further news and info is available from burmanet, the Burma Project, freeburma.org, the Democratic Voice of Burma and links therein.