Lucas Stewart's Blog, page 11

Sadaik Shorts: Selected Myanmar Short Stories

Despite being a decade old, still the best English language collection of short stories from Myanmar available.  Featuring over 20 celebrated writers including Journal Kyaw Ma Ma Lay, Nyi Pyu Lay, U Pe Myint, Khet Ma, Ma Sandar and Ma Ju among others.  Ma Thanegi’s translation, as usual, is pitch perfect with each story accompanied by a colour illustration.

[image error]Title: Selected Myanmar Short Stories

Author: Various

Translator: Ma Thanegi

Publisher: Unity Publishing House

Published: 2009

 

 

(Sadai...

Exploring Burma’s Bookshops: Bagan

Opened in the 1970s’, Bagan Book House is the mainstay of the famous 37th Book Street and has carved out its own niche with a collection dedicated solely to Myanmar in the English language.  If a book has been written on Myanmar by a foreign author Bagan Book House will probably sell it – though in a pirated, copied edition.  The owner U Htay Aung, the son of the founder, has a personal interest in travel and history and this is reflected in an extensive display of pre-colonial administrative...

# 5 – Northern Moon

Far away from the publishing power centres in Mandalay and Yangon and only a three hour drive from the frontline of a malignant civil conflict Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State in the far north of Myanmar is not where you would necessarily expect to find a thriving literary group.

Northern Moon, named so due to their home in the north, was formed by a retired railway official in 1996.  The 11 members still meet once a week at the bungalow home of the founder where they talk literature an...

Sai Sang Pe – Vet to Children’s Author

Sai Sang Pe is an ethnic Shan children’s writer and literary scholar.  The author and designer of 8 children’s books in the Shan Gyi language, many of which aim to educate the Shan youth on drug awareness and health.  Before the abolition of censorship, none of his books were allowed to be sold in bookshops due to the language they were written, but with the assistance of the Shan Culture and Literature Association, the books were sold in ‘unofficial’ bookshops in Shan State, often in the bac...

Government Press Building

Sitting in the shadow of the much larger and imposing Secretariat, it is easy to dismiss this two storey, red brick building as just another of the many abandoned and unloved heritage structures so common in Yangon.  And yet (as is true for so many of these buildings) for over a century the Government Press has a long and important history.

Construction began in 1906, and after some funding issues, eventually opened in 1912 as the Government Press Building.  It started as a distribution node...

Sadaik Shorts: Gasoline

Though barely 30 pages thick, this chapbook eludes to why Maung Day is one of the most formidable poets of his generation.  Boundaries and borders are crossed with impunity as he collides the village with outer space; the absurd with the real and the pretend into a at times disconcerting, relentless, explosion of thought where, in his own words and perhaps as a form of apology, responsibility is cast off and blame is marvellously laid to rest at the feet of others: ‘I chained my monkey to the...

Exploring Burma’s Bookshops: Innwa

On the same stretch of Upper Pansodan road as Yar Pyae and Sarpay Lawka, Innwa announces itself with an oversized shop sign and two steep entry stairs which lead from the street to two dedicated book rooms.  The room on the right is for Burmese originals, the room on the left for translated works.

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They do have a larger section than most for English language works written by Burmese (in the left room) where you can find many of the perennial authors such as Daw Khin Myo Chit, U Maung Maung an...

# 4 – Chin Association for Christian Communication

The Chin live in a wedge of hills along the western border of Myanmar with India and Bangladesh.  Descending south, possibly from Tibet, around the 7th century, they settled in the Kalay valley in Sagaing region and were known to the first Burmese Kingdom in Bagan in the 11th Century.  Pushed into the neighbouring hills by the Shan in the 1400’s, the Chin now, officially and probably mistakenly, are designated into 53 communities.  The Chin Hills are remote and the least developed in Myanmar,...

Mu Mu Winn – Teacher to Novelist

Mu Mu Winn is a writer and teacher.  She graduated with an MA in English from Yangon University and taught the subject there for 15 years.  Leaving Myanmar she worked in China, Laos and Bhutan for the United Nations, before gaining her MA in Education from Sussex University in the UK.  She spent the next 16 years living in Qatar as an English Lecturer at the State University.  She has now returned to Yangon where she dabbles in translation and interpretation.   She has published one novel in...

Kuthodaw Pagoda

With so many pagodas in Myanmar, it is easy to dismiss them all as alike.  Yet, Kuthodaw pagoda is something special.

Off a quiet road from the former palace walls, the Kuthodaw Pagoda, like all pagodas, is best visited at dusk, when the tiles are no too hot to walk on and when the bats start to come out the nearby banyan trees.  Inside, small girls sell jasmine necklaces as offerings for the necks of the crowd of Buddha images.  The central, covered walkway is flanked on both sides by 729 ‘p...