Ko Ko Thett ( my, ကိုကိုသက်; stylised as ko ko thett; born in 1972 in

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

) is a

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

, poetry translator and editor based in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

, United Kingdom. Ko Ko Thett has published poetry collections, anthologies and translations in both

Burmese Burmese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia * Burmese people * Burmese language * Burmese alphabet * Burmese cuisine * Burmese culture Animals * Burmese cat * Burmese chicken * Burmese (hor ...

and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. In 1993, Ko Ko Thett enrolled in Yangon Institute of Technology, where he became a founder member of a campus-based samizdat poetry circle. He was detained in 1996 for his involvement in the
December 1996 student uprising
Upon his release in April 1997, he left the country for Singapore, and worked for humanitarian organizations in Bangkok (Thailand) and in Europe. He read political science and cultural anthropology at universities in Helsinki (Finland), Vienna (Austria) and Leuven (Belgium). He was a recipient of the 2012 English PEN Writers in Translation Programme Award for ''Bones will Crow'', an anthology of 15 contemporary Burmese poets, he co-edited with James Byrne. Following a residency at th
International Writing Program
at the University of Iowa in the United States in 2016, and a book tour, he returned to Myanmar in 2017. From 2012 to 2020, Ko Ko Thett was country editor for Myanmar a
Poetry International
and from 2017 to 2022, poetry editor fo
Mekong Review
Ko Ko Thett has been published in Ambit, Asia Literary Review, Bengal Lights, Cyphers, Daedalus, Granta, Griffith Review, PN Review, Poetry London, Portside Review, The Margins, Tripwire, Usawa Literary Review, Washington Square Review, and World Literature Today, among others. His book, Bamboophobia, was shortlisted for th
2022 Walcott Poetry Prize

Works

* ''Bones Will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets'' (2012), co-edited with James Byrne, * ''The Burden of Being Burmese'' (2015), * ''ဖူးဖူးသက်ရဲ့အင်တာနက် မိတ်ဆက်စာမျက်နှာ oo Foo Thett’s Page on an Internet Dating Site' (2016) * ''လေယူလေသိမ်း CCENT' (2018) * ''Bamboophobia'' (2022), * ''Picking off New Shoots will Not Stop the Spring'' (2022), co-edited with Brian Haman,

References

External links

* {{Authority control Burmese male poets 20th-century Burmese poets 20th-century male writers 21st-century Burmese poets 21st-century male writers 1972 births Writers from Yangon Prisoners and detainees of Myanmar Burmese emigrants to the United Kingdom Living people