Mya Than Tint

Mya Than Tint was born on May 23, 1929 in Myaing, Pakokku Township, Magway Division, Myanmar. His birth name was Mya Than. His writing career began in 1949 when his first short novel “Refugee” was published in Tara (Star) Magazine. He published many short and full length novels, documentaries and translated works in his 50 year writing career. Dataung Ko Kyaw Ywe, Mee Pinle Ko Phyat Mi (Across the Mountain of Swords and the Sea of Fire) (1973) is considered to be his greatest masterpiece. He also wrote historical documentaries like “Breeze on Taung-Ta-Man Lake”.

Also a prolific translator of Western works into Burmese, Mya Than Tint introduced the Burmese to the world classics like War and Peace, Gone with the Wind , Dream of the Red Chamber, etc. He won the Myanmar National Literature Award five times for translation War and Peace(1972) , Gone with the Wind (1978) , Dream of the Red Chamber (1988) , City of Joy (1992) and Beyond Love (1995).

Mya Than Tint was jailed from 1963 to 1972 by the military regime that seized power in 1962, serving time in Yangon's Insein Prison and on the Coco Islands penal colony in the Indian Ocean. He died in Yangon of a brain hemorrhage on 18 February 1998. ^[1]