Kyi Kyi Tin-Myint, known by her pen name Kyi Aye ( my, ကြည်အေး) was a Burmese poet, novelist, and short story writer. Born in

Yangon 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 ...

, she studied at University of Medicine and

University of Yangon '') , mottoeng = There's no friend like wisdom. , established = , type = Public , rector = Dr. Tin Mg Tun , undergrad = 4194 , postgrad = 5748 , city = Kamayut 11041, Yangon , state = Yangon Regio ...

. She is credited as one of the most influential Burmese writers for several generations, however, her works remain largely unknown outside

Burmese language Burmese ( my, မြန်မာဘာသာ, MLCTS: ''mranmabhasa'', IPA: ) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Myanmar (also known as Burma), where it is an official language, lingua franca, and the native language of the Burmans, the count ...

Life and career

Kyi Kyi was born in

British Burma British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

's Hledan,

district on 13 December 1929, the third child of U Han and Daw Ngwai Yon. In 1948, the year Burma regained its independence from the British, she began attending Rangoon University. She began as a medical student, but changed course in her third year, finishing school with a bachelor of arts instead. She received her BA from

with a major in English literature. In 1953, she married a bank manager Tin Myint. After the marriage, she managed to work as a lecturer in the English Department of Yangon University and resumed her interrupted medical studies to completion. She had begun writing poems and short stories since she was in high school. Her first short story, titled "That Night" (ထိုည) was published in Taya Magazine, which was founded by

Dagon Taya Dagon Taya ( my, ဒဂုန်တာရာ; 10 May 1919 – 19 August 2013; also spelt Dagon Taryar), born Htay Myaing, was a renowned Myanmar writer. He was born at Htai Ku Myit Tan Village ( Mon), Kyaiklat Township, Ayeyarwaddy Region on 10 ...

in 1947. Her works were lifelike stories of the upper middle class. Her language was crisp and forceful. Her plots were frank and familiar. She used to write about the feelings of her characters without restraint. She emigrated to the United States in December 1971, with her husband and children, where she obtained her medical license. She became a psychiatrist, specializing in Child and Adolescent psychiatry. She worked at a number of hospitals and institutions in the US and UK and retired in 2002. She died on 28 December 2016, of

acute myeloid leukemia Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal cells that build up in the bone marrow and blood and interfere with normal blood cell production. Symptoms may includ ...

Works

Burmese , - ! Poetry Collection , - , * ကြည်အေး၏ကဗျာများ, , ', , (''Collected Poems of Kyi Aye''), , 1990 , - , * ပွင့်ဒင်္ဂ , , ', , (''The Moment of Apotheosis''), , 2016 , - ! Fiction , - , * မီ , , ''Mee'', , (''Ms. Mee''), , 1955 , - , * နွမ်းလျအိမ်ပြန်, , ', , (''The Tiresome Return''), , 1958 , - , * ဖုန်းသက်တိုင်, , ', , (''Eternal Love of A Monsieur''), , 1960 , - , * တမ်းတတတ်သည်, , ', , (''Longing''), , 1961 , - , * ကျွန်မပညာသည်, , ', , (''I am the Artist''), , 1961 , - , * ကေဖွဲ့ဆိုသီ, , ', , (''When Ms. Kay Composes''), , 1963 , - , * မောင် ကိုကိုနှင့် မြနန္ဒာ, , ', , (''Maung, Ko Ko and Myanandar''), , 1973 , - , * မေတ္တာမီးအိမ်, , ', , (''Lamp of Love''), , 1980 , - , * အပြင်ကလူ, , , , (''The Outsider''), , 1996 , - , * မှန်၏မှောင်ရိပ် : စိုးနှင့်ခိုင်, , ', , (''Through a Glass Darkly : Soe and Khine''), , 1996 , - , * မှန်၏မှောင်ရိပ် : အိမ်ဖြူလင်းသစ်, , ', , (''Through a Glass Darkly : Bright and White Home''), , 2001 , - ! Short Stories Collection , - , * ကြည်အေး၏ ဝတ္ထုတိုများ, , ', , (''Short Stories of Kyi Aye''), , 1994 , - , * ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်, , ', , (''Collected Short Stories of Kyi Aye''), , 2007 , - ! Memoirs , - , * ဘဝအစွန်မှာ , , ', , (''At the Edge of A Lifetime''), , 2015 , ---- English * "Working Elephants" (Essay), ''Back to Mandalay: Burmese Life, Past and Present'' edited by Gillian Cribbs,

Abbeville Publishing Group Abbeville Publishing Group is an independent book publishing company specializing in fine art and illustrated books. Based in New York City, Abbeville publishes approximately 40 titles each year and has a catalogue of over 700 titles on art, arc ...

, September 1996. ---- Burmese Translation * Jr. LeGrand Cannon, ''Look to the Mountain'', 1955. (တောတောင်ရေမြေ) *

Pearl S. Buck Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973) was an American writer and novelist. She is best known for ''The Good Earth'' a bestselling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck ...

, ''This Proud Heart'', 1994. (ဤမာန)

References

{{authority control Burmese novelists Burmese women short story writers Burmese psychiatrists Burmese women physicians University of Medicine 1, Yangon alumni University of Yangon alumni 20th-century Burmese poets 21st-century Burmese poets 20th-century Burmese writers 21st-century Burmese writers 20th-century Burmese women writers 21st-century Burmese women writers 20th-century novelists 20th-century short story writers 21st-century novelists 21st-century short story writers People from Yangon Burmese women poets Burmese emigrants to the United States 1929 births 2016 deaths American psychiatrists American women psychiatrists 21st-century American women

Life and career

Works

See also

References