On the Road to Mandalay: Tales of Ordinary People

Win Pe, U.: - U Win Pe has been at various times a radio reporter, cartoonist, writer and film director. His 1980 film 'Hninsi Ni Eain Mat' (Dream of a Red Rose) earned him a Myanmar Academy Award for best director in 1981. He started writing short stories in the late 1980s and became the first writer from Myanmar to be invited to attend the University of Iowa's International Writing Program. Taking the opportunity, while there, of speaking out about freedom of expression, he then found he could not return home. Remaining in America, he co-founded Radio Free Asia (RFA) and also contributed reporting for the VOA and the BBC. His three-month stay in America lasted 18 years. U Win Pe, now back in Burma, is also an internationally known artist; his medium of choice being watercolours.