Confessions of a prisoner of conscience

A former aide of Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi and a prisoner of conscience in her country, Ma Thida was sentenced to 20 years, imprisonment in 1993 for “endangering public peace, having contact with illegal organisations, and distributing unlawful literature.” After serving nearly six years in solitary confinement, she was released. Her works efforts to tell the truth however, continue to this day. At a session on November 19 and 20, the writer and human rights activist will be in conversation with Aakar Patel at Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2016, to discuss her life behind the bars and what followed after she walked out prison.

What will your session be about?
My first session on November 19 will be, ‘Words Behind Bars: Being a prisoner of conscience’. It will be about my prison memoir and my life in prison from 1993 to 1999. My second session on November 20 is, ‘Women politicians in South Asia’. Though I am immensely interested in politics, I do not want to be called a politician. But it happens.

How difficult was it to pen your memoir and how long was it in the making?
Writing down this book was not that hard. The one thing that I did care about was, to not make any of my friends (mentioned in the book) fall in trouble or get arrested because of any disclosure. Deciding how much I should disclose about their activities was the difficult part. My experience in prison was not that hard. Just that we were not allowed to read or write in prison in those days, so I needed to memorise every significant event and date. As soon as I was released, the first thing I did was to write down everything. I spent over four months to finish writing this book, but I did the research during my prison days with the help of a Harvard student. I finished writing it in 2010, when situation in my country was not good. So keeping this manuscript as a soft copy was risky too. So I left a hard copy of my manuscript at Harvard in my friends’ hands. I was thinking of getting it published in English first since there was still censorship in Myanmar at that time. Fortunately my Myanmar version was published as soon as the censorship was lifted in 2012.

Tell us about your journey as an author.
Well, I was always passionate about writing. I just want to be recognized as an independent, good writer. I was a late reader since I started reading voraciously in my mid-teens. My love for writing coupled with my interest in human rights led me to write since the age of 16 — although then, it was only short stories. Thanks to the military regime in the country, many of my short stories got banned. But with time, many of my essays and articles did get published. From there I went on to become the editor of a various publications.

what are the other projects you’re working on?
I am leading PEN Myanmar as an elected president and currently also being elected as board member of PEN International. Most of my activities and projects are related to freedom of expression and literature.