Writer Profile: Ponnya Khin
Ponnya Khin (b. 1972) is a novelist and short story writer. Born in Ayeyarwaddy Region, she worked at various jobs, including a primary school teacher and journalist. She published her first story in 1993, moved to Yangon and has, unusually, written full time since 2000. She has achieved this through an immense literary output …
with 125 novels and 6 short story collections. Many (over 100) of her novels have been adapted for the big screen and 3 have received prizes at the annual Myanmar Motion Picture Awards. Her notable works include Upscale Water (2015) a tale based on the real rape of an underage girl; the romance A Girl Who Came from the Southwest (2016) and Beyond the Mountains (2017) which portray the lives of ethnic chin women from a disadvantaged mountain-side community. Most of her other writings are female orientated, depicting the socio-cultural barriers to women, especially young women, in Myanmar society. Like many of the countrys successful writers she distributes her own books through an eponymous publishing house, Ponnya Khin Books.