Lucas Stewart's Blog, page 16

U Thaw Kaung -Literary Legend

The first time I met U Thaw Kaung, writer, librarian, collector and preserver, he sat alone on a bench under a large tree in a garden that slipped into Inya Lake.  There were other writers present, National Literature Award winners, former literary prisoners, many I knew, some I didn’t but it was U Thaw Kaung who everyone gravitated towards.

I hesitated, unsure if it is wrong to disturb him now alone.  I hung back, about thirty feet and wondered what to say to him.  I knew he had studied unde...

Maung Khine Zaw – Interesting Places of the Past

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I chose ‘Interesting Places of the Past in Yangon’ for the first of the non-fiction reviews for its ‘every-book’ qualities.  There is a common thread in many non-fiction books in translation from Myanmar; usually a collection of previously published articles in a journal; slim and invariably either focused on culture, travel spots or religious history.

There could be numerous reasons for this.  Under the previous governments, censorship policies made books on festivals and Buddhist temples s...

Ahpor Rahmonya

Min Yar Moe (b. 1977) grew up in Thoung Pha Lu Village, Thanbuzayat Township in Mon State.  After finishing middle school, he began to borrow banned Mon language books, printed in Thailand and smuggled across the nearby border by Mon political and cultural organisations.  He entered a monastery in his twenties to study advanced Pali for five years and wrote his first Mon language article when he was 23.  Despite the routine censorship and shut-down of ethnic language journals, some endured, a...

Of Peaceful Days – Book Launch

In the wake of several recent years of intra-religious conflict in Myanmar comes a compilation of essays, stories and poetry exploring a time when different religious communities lived – supposedly – side by side in peace.

A collaboration between Myanmar ICT for Development Organisation and St Anthony’s College, Oxford the book features some heavy hitters, such as Min Ko Naing, Ma Thida, San San New and Maung Saung Kha with contributions from some of the 180 people interviewed across the coun...

Ma Sandar: The Sixth Enemy and other Stories

Along with poetry, short stories are the most popular form of literary expression in Myanmar.  Many of the greats of the Burmese literary canon from the 1920’s onwards have dabbled in both.  Which is why the lack of available English translations of these stories is such a shame.  This collection by Ma Sandar is a much needed contribution.

The 20 stories roam across lower Myanmar, from the capital to the coast to unnamed villages.  Ever-present is the women.  The wife.  The Aunt.  The Daught...

Burmese-American Writer Wins Graywolf Prize

Coming off the publication of her first experimental novel The End of Peril, the End of Enmity, the End of Strife, A Haven (Noemi Press, 2018), Burmese-American writer Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint had won this year’s Graywolf Press Nonfiction prize for her unpublished manuscript, Zat Lun.

From the press release, Zat Lun ‘pushes back against expectations around immigrant narratives and explores home, belonging, and identity through the lens of various cities and villages in the United States and Myan...

Rev. N-gan Tang Gun: Kachin Culture and Tradition

One of the hopes of my book, The People Elsewhere, was to shine a light on the misconception that all languages and literature from the ethnic nationality groups in Myanmar had been suppressed by successive juntas over fifty years.  The reality is much more complicated of course.  The learning of these multitude of languages was discouraged, and on many occasions criminalised unless taught within the specific, narrow boundaries that the government would allow (at home, at after school clubs,...

Moe Linn – Up Close

There is no shortage of books on the market that delve into the life of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Peter Popham’s ‘The Lady and the Peacock’ and his more recent ‘The Lady and the Generals’, Justin Wintle’s ‘Perfect Hostage’, Bertil Lintner’s ‘Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s Struggle for Democracy’ among them.

Scrimped and salvaged from scraps of letters, memories of older acquaintances and, if the authors were fortunate, a brief encounter with The Lady herself, these books have helped in the idealis...

Fellowship opportunity for Cultural Practitioners in Myanmar

Mekong Cultural Hub and the British Council have a great opportunity for those working in the cultural sector in Myanmar:

‘SEAΔ is a program co-created by Mekong Cultural Hub and British Council which creates space for cultural practitioners to reflect on how their work in arts and culture can contribute to sustainable development within South East Asia through their individual and collective leadership.’

The program has 4 main gatherings spread over a one-year period where Fellows get togeth...

Aung Cheimt – 12 Poems

One of the many pleasures of the abolition of pre-publication censorship is the re-emergence of forgotten or erased works that can now be safely published.  The 12 poems from the eponymous title have been scoured from among many of Aung Cheimt’s works, dating back to 1995.  There is no notice in this collection whether the poems included have been previously published or were taken from a drawer, dusted down and are appearing in print for the first time, but either way the publication of pre...