Asylum on Sampsonia Way, Pittsburgh
"Here I have more time to write and I don't live with the fear of persecution."
A Classroom After Nargis
"One of my responsibilities as a writer is to let readers inside Burma know about the era in which we are living."
A Call to Action
"A friend came to my house to tell me that he lost eight nieces and nephews in Nargis...When I saw all the suffering and how the government wasn't helping. I was really moved to act."
Putting Things in Perspective
"At that time [of Cyclone Nargis], I was running [Moe Journal] and had the money to publish the next issue. I thought, 'What is more important, a magazine or people?' I answered myself, 'People.'"
Friends in Jail
"I made many friends while I was in jail who were political prisoners, too. Some had the idea of starting a book club...But we didn't know if we had infiltrators in the group, so we never were explicit."
Being in Insein Prison
"A nurse came every day to inject us with medicine, but she used the same needle for all the prisoners. I was in the same cell with prostitutes, drug addicts and homeless who already were HIV-positive."
Khet Mar was Censored 15 Times
"Editors have to show all articles to the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division of the Ministry of Information. It's important to say that the head of this department is a military captain and a man who has never read literature."
Her First Censored Work
"I wrote about a girl who preferred to stay in her room and the paranoid censorship officers thought I was writing about Aung San Suu Kyi."
Demonstrations in Rangoon, 1988
"Soldiers blocked the road and shot at us. After that, I became deeply involved in the pro-democracy movement, and I became a leader in my village."
University of Yangon
"After the 1988 uprising...many universities were closed for three years, and I had a lot of time to read and write."
Khet's Grandmother Encouraged Her to Write
"I was 14. My grandmother read everything I wrote and said 'If you don't send in those stories, I will."
Since she was 19-years-old, Khet Mar has been persecuted by the Burmese government. As a journalist, political activist, novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist, she has been arrested, tortured, incarcerated and threatened. In 2007, she was interrogated by intelligence officers for 20 straight hours before being released. Afraid she would be arrested again, she left her country to become the writer-in-residence at City of Asylum/Pittsburgh.
She has authored three collections of short stories, a volume of essays and the novel Wild Snowy Night, and her work been translated into Japanese, Spanish and English.
In an interview last year with Sampsonia Way, Khet Mar detailed the ways in which the Burmese government has impacted her life, oppressed the Burmese people and created a reign of terror. The interview offered a glimpse into life under the regime of the Burmese military junta, including how the publishing industry operates under the thumb of government censors.
The above quotes and pictures summarize those experiences.
