‘The road from Kalaymyo to Hakha is lined with grave markers. With little flat ground in the northern Chin Hills, cemeteries are exchanged for solitary memorials overlooking the knuckled mountain ranges. Someusually those of the younghave photographs embedded into them; the elders are left faceless. All are etched with a name, an age, and a […]
The penultimate Hidden Words, Hidden Worlds workshop took place in Kayah State at the beginning of June. Once a black zone where foreigners were forbidden to travel beyond the capital, Loikaw, Kayah State is home to three main ethnic groups, the Kayah, Kayan and Kayaw. It is these three groups that the workshop targeted, with […]
Holding a literature workshop in Chin state, the least developed state in the second least developed country in Asia was always going to pose challenges. All of the Hidden Words workshops, regardless of the location, follow a logistical template revolving around our 2 partners, the Millennium Centres who provide the workshop venue and live literature […]
Since then H2 has been on the road, holding week long workshops in Hpa-an Karen State, Mawlamyine Mon State, Myiktyina Kachin state and finally in Lashio, Northern Shan State. 80 local community members have joined the workshops; we have had youth workers, WW2 veterans, University professors, business men, gym instructors, IDP camp members and lots […]
‘Of late, Burmese literature has experienced liberalising reforms which have allowed the Burmese literary community to write, to some extent, without fear of censorship or imprisonment. And while this cautious optimism is to be congratulated, what has often been overlooked is the divergent state of Burmese literature: 135 ethnic minority groups each with an unread […]