Ludu U Hla
Ludu U Hla was a Burmese journalist, publisher, chronicler, folklorist and social reformer whose prolific writings include a considerable number of path-breaking non-fiction works. He was married to fellow writer and journalist Ludu Daw Amar.
He collected oral histories from people in a diverse range of occupations which included a boatmaster on the Irrawaddy, a bamboo raftsman on the Salween, the keeper of a logging elephant, a broker for Steele Bros., a gambler on horses, a bureaucrat and a reporter. These were published in a series of books titled "I the ------".
A library of 43 volumes of folk tales, a total of 1597 stories, that he collected between 1962 and 1977 from most of the ethnic minorities of Burma was a truly Herculean undertaking. Many of these have been translated into several languages. There are 5 other volumes of folktales from around the world to his credit.
During the U Nu era of parliamentary democracy, he spent over three years in Rangoon Central Jail as a political prisoner after publishing a controversial news story in his Mandalay newspaper Ludu. Whilst in prison he interviewed several inmates and wrote their life stories as told in the first person narrative, the best known collection of which was published in The Caged Ones; it won the UNESCO award for literature in 1958, and has been translated into English.
''Kyipwayay'' U Hla
Born in Pazun Myaung village near Nyaunglebin in Lower Burma, and educated at the Rangoon Government High School, by the age of 20, U Hla had secured a valuer's position with the Rangoon Municipal Corporation; the Depression had hit Burma culminating in a peasant uprising and the founding of the nationalist Dobama Asiayone. He joined the Lungemya Kyipwayay Athin which started as the Friendly Correspondence Club cum debating society among high school students in 1926, and his high-minded reformist zeal for all-round betterment of the country's youth had remained a lifelong passion since.He lived over the shop in Scott's Market as a boarder, doubling as librarian, and taught night classes to children from poor families in the neighbourhood. A keen sportsman, he played football for the Municipal team, exercised regularly and remained a teetotaller all his life.
In 1932 he managed to take over the publication of the Kyipwayay magazine after a false start by the chairman U Thein. He had wanted to be a writer and publisher and grabbed the opportunity. The magazine was a success with most of the day's famous writers on board and with an editorial remit of educating young people in self-improvement, health and moral discipline in the struggle for independence and for building a new united Burma. Regular columns such as Maha Swe's Nei Thu Yein's Fearless Doctrine and Theippan Maung Wa's Letter from Maung Than Gyaung attracted a large readership. The Kyipwayay became the vehicle for a new style and content in Burmese literature known as Hkit san, a movement started most notably by Theippan Maung Wa, Nwe Soe, Zawgyi, Min Thu Wun, Maung Thuta, Maung Htin and Mya Kaytu. He also wrote articles assuming the pen names Kyipwayay Maung Hla and Maung Kan Kaung. A devout Buddhist and non-violent reformist at heart, he made friends with and his home became a favourite haunt of many politicians such as Aung San, Thakin Than Tun, Thakin Zin and Thakin Ba Koe as well as writers such as Maha Swe, Dagon Taya, Zawana, P Moe Nin, Thukha, Maung Htin and Dr Maung Hpyuu, journalists such as Thuriya U Thein Maung, cartoonists U Ba Galay, U Hein Soon and U Ba Gyan, artist U Ohn Lwin and weightlifters Ka-ya bala U Shein, U Zaw Weik and U Ne Win. The Thuriya newspaper was where he had started as a budding writer and where he appeared to have learnt the rudiments of journalism and publishing. U Hla was tall, fair and handsome, and known for his friendly smile, gentle soft-spoken manner, even temper, clean living and generosity.
When the second university students strike in history broke out in 1936, he became friendly with one of the best known women student leaders, Amar from Mandalay, whose Burmese translation of Trials in Burma by Maurice Collis he had published among her other writings in his magazine. They married in 1939 and he moved to Mandalay where he continued to publish the Kyipwayay. He invited on board upcountry writers such as Shwe Kaingtha and Marla, an old school friend of Amar, in addition to the usual stable of writers such as Maha Swe, Zawgyi, Min Thu Wun, Theippan Maung Wa, Zawana, Maung Hpyuu and Maung Htin.
Wartime Kyipwayay
During the Japanese Occupation, the Kyipwayay continued to come out even though the whole extended family had fled the war to the countryside north of Mandalay. It featured as before cultural essays, literary reviews, and articles on travel, rural development and health education. U Hla and Daw Amar translated into Burmese and published all three best-selling wartime novels of the Japanese soldier writer Hino Ashihei:- Soil and Soldiers – Shun hnint sittha and
- Flowers and Soldiers – Paan hnint sittha by U Hla
- Wheat and Soldiers – Gyon hnint sittha by Daw Amar who also translated "The Rainbow" by the Polish Communist writer Wanda Wasilewska in 1945.
Post-War Ludu
During the period of post-war austerity, U Hla continued to publish using any kind of paper that he could get hold of including coloured matchbox packing paper and used office paper with printing on one side. He would also still manage to send his new books as gifts, about 200 on each occasion, to all his friends in Rangoon at a time when communication lines and road and rail transportation had all but broken down. It was in 1945 that he launched the fortnightly Ludu ''Journal with his wife as assistant editor. The following year saw the launch of the Ludu Daily newspaper and subsequently the couple came to be known as Ludu U Hla and Ludu Daw Amar. Their incisive political commentaries and analyses made a significant contribution to the country's yearning for independence and unified struggle against colonial rule. Their publications had never carried advertisements for alcohol, drugs to enhance sexual performance or gambling, nor racing tips, salacious affairs and gossip. U Hla had to be persuaded to make an exception of film advertisements for the survival of the paper.One morning in 1948, soon after Burma gained her independence from the British, however, the Kyipwa Yay Press in Mandalay was dynamited to rubble by government troops who were angry that the Ludu couple appeared to be sympathetic to the Communists. This was a time when regime change happened quite often with the city falling into the hands, in turn, of the Karen rebels, Communists and the new nationalist government under U Nu. The entire family, including two pregnant women, was thrown out into the street, lined up and was about to be gunned down when a number of monks and locals successfully intervened to save their lives. Although only an ardent reformist, if left-leaning, and recognised as such from the early days by his friends and colleagues, the accusing finger of being a Communist by successive governments was never to leave him, even when many in the ruling party of the day, including Ne Win, knew him personally. Hardline leftists, on the other hand, regarded him as weak and indecisive, lacking in revolutionary commitment.
U Hla was an active founding member of the Writers Association of Burma and chaired the Upper Burma section. In 1952 he attended, with Thakin Kodaw Hmaing, Zawana, Shwe U Daung, Dagon Taya and U Ohn Lwin, the Conference for Peace in the Asia Pacific Region in Peking. In October 1953 the AFPFL government imprisoned U Hla under Section 5 for sedition as a political prisoner which spawned a whole genre of life stories of his fellow inmates among others that he published after his release in January 1957: