Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
were royal genealogies, classical poetry and law texts. A Burmese version of the Indian
epic Ramayana was first written in 1775 by poet U Aung Pyo.
The first Myanmar novel
Maung Yin Maung Ma Me Ma,
an adaptation of
The Count
of Monte Cristo
, by James Hla Kyaw, was published in 1904. Eric Blair (aka George Or-
well) worked in Myanmar from 1922 to 1927 as a policeman, an experience that in-
formed his novel
Burmese Days,
first published in 1934. Sharply critical of colonial life
in the country, it is one of the few English-language books still widely available in My-
anmar (unlike Orwell's
1984
and
Animal Farm,
political works that are not to the gener-
als' tastes).
More recently, Myanmar-born Nu Nu Yi Inwa, one of the country's leading writers
with at least 15 novels and over 100 short stories to her name, made the shortlist for the
2007 Man Asian Literary Prize with
Smile As They Bow
. The story, set at the Taungbyon
Festival held near Mandalay, follows an elder gay transvestite medium who fears losing
his much younger partner to a woman in the heat of the week-long festivities. Also check
out the poetry of Ko Ko Thett (
www.kokothett.webs.com
) and the novels of Wendy
Yone-Law.
To catch up on the latest in local literature, visit the site of the Irrawaddy Literature
Festival (
http://irrawaddylitfest.com
), which in 2014 was held in Mandalay.
Winner of the Aung San Suu Kyi Award at the Human Rights, Human Dignity Interna-
tional Film Festival in Yangon in 2013 was
Survival in Prison
, Yee Nan Theik's feature-
length documentary about the political prisoner San Zaw Htway, who spent 12 years in
jail.
Cinema
Myanmar has had a modest film industry since the early 20th century and it continues
today producing low-budget, uncontroversial action pics, romances and comedies that
are a staple of cinemas, village video-screening halls and DVD sellers across the country.
There's even an annual Academy Awards ceremony that is one of the country's biggest
social events.
You'll mostly need to look to film-makers outside Myanmar for movies and docu-
mentaries that tackle some of the country's more controversial topics. Among recent doc-
umentaries available on video or doing the festival rounds are Nic Dunlop's
Burma Sol-
dier
(
www.breakthrufilms.org/burma-soldier
), the moving story of a military recruit who
loses two limbs to land mines and switches sides to become a democracy activist; Rex
Bloomstein's
This Prison Where I Live
(
http://thisprisonwhereilive.co.uk
) about the
