Announcement--

Announcement--

Last night I got the idea that I would like to put out (publish) a collection of my dear cousin, Ko Ko Min Shin's short stories in English.

So if you collected some from Shumuwa 1950s "On the Road"--Lann Paw Hmar series, pl send me pdfs that are readable or a doc. in Zawgyi font.

I have Not Every Needy Poor a Thief, which is based on his idea, that he may not have had time to write it down in Burmese.  In any case it has his true authentic voice, which I can hear when I re-read it now.

The second one is of course Not Ordained by Fate--Saung Lu Lin's audio version, which I will translate into English.

I am also looking for a photo of Ko Min Shin.

I know for a fact that he wrote at least 2 other stories, as I remember reading them--

these were

--one on birth control, it really was not that graphic at all, that Ko Ko wanted me to translate very much, but my mother would not let me.

She said the subject matter was not appropriate for a young woman.  I was about 18 at the time.

--The other was about a bus driver, having a very rough day, also drawn from life.

This one, Bus Driver, I adapted into a radio play and even delivered it in an envelope at the BBS (Burma Broadcasting Service) gate on Prome Road, for Mr. Percy Loo Nee, head of the English section.

But I suppose Mr. Loo Nee was too afraid to produce it on air, so I never heard from him again.

But even when I was already in the States, he would keep asking about me with my children who took English tuition with him, "How's your mother, the playwright."

At that time I had not written a play yet, but eventually I did--Shaman.

I wrote it in two weeks for a competition.

Shaman is about a spirit spouse or nat kadaw who was abused as a child and has multiple personalities, which manifest themselves as some of the Burmese 37 nats.

When Shaman was still a one paragraph concept called Flashback, it won a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Award for $3000.

In 1996, it was a Pew finalist script and in about 2003, Edward Albee, renowned playwright Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? and other plays, read it and said, it is "lovely work."

My friend Peggy Fleming produced and directed and cast a script-in-hand reading in 2003 at her home in DC.  I provided the costumes.  I will try and scan the photos.

I currently have to convert Shaman into a novel.  I don't think it will be too difficult to do.  I have already converted it into a screenplay.

But--always short of time--
no matter, I will make myself a life extender (nyaung htauk).

KMKaung
5-5-2014