Description

After century-long repression, Myanmar people lost their ability to think about their identity. A lot of people still cannot differentiate between race and ethnics, between race and religion. Lack of qualified education throughout its history contributes people’s confused perception towards their identity. Repression made minority groups lost their identity, language and literature. Therefore, when current government makes relaxation in its political system, all groups, either minority or majority, aggressively defend their identity. In other words, people prefer ethnic identity than national identity and so there are different kinds of fights and wars among different groups of people. However people of Myanmar yet define the national identity. National identity query, then, might help Myanmar to be peaceful.

Ma Thida was born in Rangoon in 1966, where she later studied medicine. In the mid-eighties, she began writing short stories that were published by different journals. The doctor and editor got involved in several democratization projects at the time. She edited pamphlets, evaluated tapes and videos, and was a medical volunteer for the family members of political prisoners. Because of increased censorship, it became more and more difficult for her to publish literary texts. In 1993, Ma Thida was sentenced to twenty years in prison for supporting the pro-democracy movement. Also in 1993, Anna J. Allott at the Northern Illinois University read her essay “Thumbnail sketch on Burmese literature world 1988 onwards’’, which covers in detail different literary forms and includes examples of contemporary works as well as background information about the censorship procedures of the authorities in Myanmar. A lot of sympathy for Ma Thida was shown all over the world while the author was in prison. She was awarded PEN USA’s Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write award, Reebok Human Rights award and honor award from American Association of Advancement of Science in 1995-96. After she was released in 1999, Ma Thida spent a lot of time abroad and participated in medical training programmes, international writers’ projects, festivals of literature and panel discussions dealing with freedom of speech. Since 2009 she has been a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University. Vipassanā meditation techniques helped her cope while she was in jail. In 2011, she received the Norwegian ‘’Freedom of Speech Award’’, in particular for her novel ‘’The Roadmap’’ (2011), which she published under the pen name Suragamika (tr.: Brave traveller). Based on two families’ story, the book describes two decades of the Burmese democracy movement. Ma Thida also published an anthology of translations of Japanese poems by writers from three decades. Her prison memoir in Burmese named ‘’Sanchaung, Insein, Harvard’’ was published last November and till now, it was published again and again. And she translated a memoir of a Japanese woman and it is called ‘’Letter To Aung San Suu Kyi’’. Another book of her published very recently is a collection of editorials from The Myanmar Independent news journal which she edited last year. She still writes articles and short stories in English and Burmese. Ma Thida is now editing Pae Tin Tharn journal.