Thant Thaw Kaung

Thant Thaw Kaung (Burmese: သန့်သော်ကောင်း) is a Burmese publisher and library advocate.[1] He heads the Myanmar Book Aid and Preservation Foundation, and the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation's mobile library project.[2]

In this Burmese name, the given name is Thant Thaw Kaung. There is no family name.
Thant Thaw Kaung
သန့်သော်ကောင်း
Thant Thaw Kaung (on the furthest left) with Htin Kyaw (in the centre)
Born1969 (1969) (age 54)
Burma
NationalityBurmese
Alma materUniversity of Medicine 1, Yangon
Occupations
  • Library advocate
  • publisher
Employer(s)Myanmar Book Centre
Myanmar Book Aid and Preservation Foundation
Parent(s)Thaw Kaung
Khin Than
AwardsJeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award (2016)

Early life and education

Thaw Kaung was born in 1969 to Thaw Kaung, a Burmese academic, and Khin Than, a government accountant.[3] He graduated from the University of Medicine 1, Yangon.[4]

Career

After graduating, Thant Thaw Kaung practiced as a physician until founding the Myanmar Book Centre, a book importer and distributor in 1995.[5][6] Myanmar Book Centre supplies books and educational materials to 98% of the country's libraries, schools, and universities.[6]

After the 2008 Cyclone Nargis, Thant Thaw Kaung succeeded his father to become head of the Myanmar Book Aid and Preservation Foundation, which seeks to preserve Burmese manuscripts and books.[7]

In 2013, he joined the advisory board of the Asian Festival of Children's Content, replacing his father.[8] In 2014, the Asia Foundation awarded Thant Thaw Kaung with a visiting fellowship.[1] In 2014, the Association of American Publishers awarded him the Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award for playing "a leading role in keeping books and literary life alive in Myanmar (Burma) under an oppressive authoritarian regime."[9][6] In 2017, APNIC's Information Society Innovation Fund funded Thant Thaw Kaung's foundation through a grant.[10]

Thant Thaw Kaung also managed the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation's mobile library initiative.[11] In the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, the military junta launched an investigation into the finances of the foundation, which was founded by Aung San Suu Kyi.[12] Thant Thaw Kaung was detained in February 2021.[13] In January 2022, he was called to testify in criminal proceedings against Suu Kyi, but did not appear in court, which forced the trial to be delayed.[14][15][16]

References
  1. "Asia Foundation Awards Dr. Thant Thaw Kaung with Chang-lin Tien Visiting Fellowship". The Asia Foundation. 2014-06-04. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  2. "Conversation with Burmese Publisher, Library Advocate U Thant Thaw Kaung". The Asia Foundation. 2014-07-09. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  3. "Dr. Thaw Kaung Collection". Universities' Central Library. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  4. "Contact – University Of Medicine (1), Yangon". University of Medicine (1) Alumni Association. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  5. "The optimistic bookseller". Mizzima Myanmar News and Insight. 2015-05-18. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  6. "Dr. Thant Thaw Kaung to Receive Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award". Access. 2014-04-16. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  7. "The Documentary heritage of Myanmar: selected case studies". UNESCO. 2018. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  8. "Thaw Kaung". Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
  9. "Burmese Bookseller to Receive Freedom to Publish Award". Publishers Weekly. 2014-04-16. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  10. "Project Factsheet Information" (PDF). ISIF. 2017-11-15.
  11. "Mobile libraries bring books to rural communities". DVB. 2013-08-01. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  12. KyawThu (2021-02-11). "Myanmar Military Regime Probes Finances of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's Charity". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  13. "Military regime raids office of Suu Kyi's charity, detains two executives". Myanmar NOW. 2021-02-10. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  14. "ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်အပေါ် စွဲထားတဲ့ အဂတိမှု ၃ မှု ကြားနာစစ်ဆေး". ဗွီအိုအေ (in Burmese). 2022-01-21. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  15. "ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည် အဂတိမှု ၁၀ မှုကို တရက်တည်း ရင်ဆိုင်ရမည်". ဧရာဝတီ (in Burmese). 2022-01-21. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
  16. "ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်နှင့် သမ္မတဦးဝင်းမြင့် အဂတိမှု ၅ မှုဖြင့် ထပ်မံတရားစွဲခံရ". ဧရာဝတီ (in Burmese). 2022-01-14. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
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