CURRENT FELLOW

Ma Thida (2008-2009)

Burmese fiction writer and physician Ma Thida has been named recipient of Brown University’s 2008 – 2009 International Writers Project Fellowship. The fellowship provides a stipend and working space to one writer each year who has been subjected to political harassment, imprisonment or oppression in his or her country of origin.

According to Robert Coover, T.B. Stowell Adjunct Professor of Literary Arts and Principal Investigator of the International Writers Project, “Brown’s IWP is engaged fundamentally and universally with freedom of expression issues. The project’s signature program is a series of annual fellowships for distinguished writers under threat of life and liberty or forced into exile, whose writings are censored or suppressed, fellowships which are accompanied by annual literary festivals and symposia at the university devoted to the literature, art, culture, and politics of the Fellow’s home region.”He adds that “The appointment of this year’s Fellow, the courageous Burmese fiction writer, practicing surgeon, and human rights activist Ma Thida, offers the university a unique yearlong opportunity to focus upon one of the world’s most secretive and oppressive regimes, as well as to become better acquainted with the south and southeast Asia region."The author of the novel The Sunflower and a collection of short stories In the Shade of an Indian Almond Tree, among other works, Ma Thida is also the prolific writer of many articles and stories about the damage done to her country by successive repressive regimes. In 1993, she was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in Yangon’s Insein Jail for “endangering the public peace, having contact with illegal organizations, and distributing unlawful literature.” The charges were based on Dr. Thida’s work to promote democratic change as campaign assistant to Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate and one of the founder’s of Myanmar’s main opposition party, The National League for Democracy.Volunteer doctor and fundraiser for the Muslim Free Hospital, a charity clinic established in 1937, Dr. Thida was among the many health professionals who treated those injured during pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988. She received a Reebok Human Rights Award in 1996.She was released from prison in 1999 on “humanitarian grounds” due to health problems.. At this time, her books are banned in her homeland.Dr. Thida’s year-long residency at Brown will begin in September. During her stay in Providence, she will have the opportunity to interact with the university community and the general public through lectures and readings of her work. Among her planned projects is a memoir of her years in prison. She is the sixth IWP Fellow; the five previous fellows were Zimbabwean novelist Chenjerai Hove, Iranian novelists Moniro Ravanipour, Shahriar Mandanipour, and Shahrnush Parsipur, and Congolese playwright Pierre Mumbere Mujomba.

The International Writers Fellowship is jointly sponsored by Brown’s Graduate Program in Literary Arts and Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies. It is funded by a grant from the William H. Donner Foundation.

Previous recipients of the Fellowship are ranian novelists Shahrnush Parsipur and Shahryar Mandanipour  and Moniro Ravanipour, Congolese playwright Pierre Mumbere Mujomba, and Zimbabwean writer, Chenjerai Hove.