Saturday 21 February 2015

Excerpt from my upcoming novella Housewarming--

Excerpt from my upcoming novella Housewarming.

"At the Newseum, they were showing continuous scenes from the Inauguration on a big screen that covered one entire wall. 
George W. Bush’s  smile alone was about 5 feet wide. 
Little boys about Kurt’s age, dressed as nineteenth century newsboys were shouting “Extra!  Extra!” and handing out broadsheets in the lobby.  I recorded the little boys’ cries and interviewed some people, including a woman from Kenya, about the Inauguration and their thoughts on democracy.  There was an exhibition of very moving Pulitzer Prize winning photographs.  One showed an execution in Iran, another in Cambodia under Pol Pot.  Another unforgettable photograph was that of the anguished parents of a toddler who had just disappeared into the sea."

Copyright KMKaung
2-21-2015 

Links to my novellas published in 2014--



Since New Year is terminally depressing, after all why should things suddenly get upbeat just because it's a new system of counting (this is an idea inserted into our minds by calendar makers)

try reading my noir (as in dark, black) not "nwa"=Burmese for stupid cow

novellas and short stories.

You will see then that however bad you think your life is, it could be much worse, yet somehow the characters prevail--one way or the other--

Here are all the links where you can buy them in Kindle or print format.

I can never say enjoy my work--but it will keep you turning pages--and stuck to your seat.

About the author:
K.M.Kaung started writing fiction as a teenager in Burma.

She comes from a family of story tellers in Myingyan in Upper Burma. Her paternal grandmother May May Gyi, saw the last king of Burma - Thibaw, taken away on a steamboat on the Irrawaddy River by the British in 1886.

Kyi May Kaung's father U Kaung was named after the King's first envoy to the West, Kinwun Mingyi U Kaung.

Her father was a well known educationist and the first chairman of the Burma Historical Commission.

As a child Kyi May was privileged to have noted scholars and artists come to visit the house.

Dr. Kaung holds a doctorate in Political Economy from the University of Pennsylvania.

Her work has been previously published in anthologies and literary journals, and she has read widely in universities and bookstores in N. America and Southeast Asia. From 1997-2001 she had a poetry and political commentary program on air, broadcast to Burma/Myanmar. Edward Albee praised her two act play, Shaman, and she has won Pew, Fulbright and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grants.

This is her first CreateSpace publication.

Upcoming is a full length novel Wolf.

You may find her on her blog
http://kyimaykaung.blogspot.com

on Facebook
www.facebook.com/kyi.m.kaung

and at Kyi Kaung@kyikaung on Twitter.

Her web site is
www.kmkaung.com

She divides her time between N. America, travel in Asia and on cyberspace. Links to my recent publications of novellas and short stories.

1.    Originally published in Wild River Review on line, The Lovers is the story of a ballet dancer from Chile, who has to leave her native land for political reasons, and emigrate to Philadelphia, in America.
Burmese-born author Kyi May Kaung lived many years in West Philadelphia while pursuing her doctorate in Political Science.
The Lovers has vivid local color while traversing the uneasy life of political asylees. The Lovers, print edition
https://www.createspace.com/4767856?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
The Lovers, Kindle edition
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lovers-Novellas-K-M-Kaung-Kaung-ebook/dp/B00JX8NZRU
At Barnes and Noble--http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Lovers.html?id=yDABoQEACAAJ

2.   Black Rice is a Burmese man with very dark skin, almost purple, and almond eyes. What happens when he is captured in an ambush in Burma's delta in 1947, as ethnic strife rages, a year before Burma's Independence from Great Britain? Find out here as K.M. Kaung takes you on a heart stopping journey through life. An intensely flavored pill of a story in 48 pages. A view through oddly made eyes.

"You've got to be taught, to hate and fear, you've got to be taught, from year to year. . . ."

Song lyrics, Rogers and Hammerstein, South Pacific, the Broadway musical.
Black Rice, print edition
https://www.createspace.com/4232789?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
Black Rice, Kindle Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Rice-Novella-K-Kaung/dp/0615797520

3.   The Rider of Crocodiles
Dr. Kaung was traveling in Thailand when a colleague told her his great great grandfather was not killed in Ayuthia in 1767 when the Burmese invaded, as he knew how to ride crocodiles.
https://www.createspace.com/4738699?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
print edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KZ6W8I6
Kindle edition
--




4.  Dancing like a Peacock and Koel Bird
My two stories, Dancing like a Peacock and Koel Bird are also available on Create Space, print edition. Published by Words Sounds and Images--
A seven year old girl is sent off across the border to earn a living and send money home to Burma. A computer expert finds--

https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=K+Kaung+dancing+like+a+peacock&sitesearch_type=STORE

My short story collection-

Dancing like a Peacock & Koel Bird, also includes Little Transparent Fetus Buddha.

Print (soft cover) + Kindle editions

http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Peacock-Bird-Border-Stories-ebook/dp/B00JWZSL3C

5.  FGM—Kindle edition
FGM: A Story about the Mutilation of Women.
Dr. Aset, a trained gynecologist with several post graduate American degrees, lets herself be drawn into an inappropriate
relationship.

My novella FGM is now available on Kindle--http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJ3FUOE

there is also a print edition on the CreateSpace/Amazon store.

https://www.createspace.com/4738586

6.  Dealing with death and old age in the USA as immigrants--
No Crib for a Bed and Other Stories, Kindle Edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JW2ZD40
No Crib for a Bed, print edition
https://www.createspace.com/4768879?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026










Wednesday 18 February 2015

Book review of KMkaung's novella 53 Red Roses by Kauk Site Ma

Book review of KMKaung's novella 53 Red Roses by Kauk Site Ma.


“Fifty Three Red Roses” is one of the novellas of Dr. Kaung, which I loved reading.

I find many interesting things in this story, such as the way the author portrays the different points of view of the man and the woman vividly.

She has described beautifully a married woman's life (Donna is the wife of an American diplomat).   Mrs. Woods has to sacrifice her own time for her other half, and to endure her life to fit her husband's career… ”days she ended up cooking what Bob likes…”--”Bob had been incredibly insensitive to give her a fur coat…” 

So that is what Donna had to accept, the gift her husband bought for her, though it is not what she enjoys.

…but a year after formal separation Donna can enjoy her life without restraint.

Dr Kaung also touches on a “spirit” if NOT “the evil spirit”...that are known to be homeless, whirling round “the Wheel of Samsara”.

Even up to now (in Burma), many people still believe that when a person dies his/her spirit dwells for seven days in and around the house,  haunting their familiar haunts, so that monks have to chant a “Kammavacca” or a Buddhist Prayer Script at the death of a human being.

“Kammavacca” is a Buddhist Prayer Manuscript made from various types of materials (but the scripts made from palm leaves are most common) containing pages or leaves on which words in the Pali Language are inscribed.


Kauk Site Ma
February 18, 2015.




Links to buy print editions of my novellas Band of Flesh and 53 Red Roses --

Here are the links where you may buy my 2 novellas--Band of Flesh and 53 Red Roses.

These links are for the print editions worldwide.

The e-edition is on Kindle.


https://www.createspace.com/5304203
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1507888627
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1507888627
http://www.amazon.de/dp/1507888627
http://www.amazon.es/dp/1507888627
http://www.amazon.fr/dp/1507888627
http://www.amazon.it/dp/1507888627

Monday 9 February 2015

How about Band of Flesh as a Valentine's Day gift--for the thinking man and woman--

How about?  Band of Flesh and 53 Red Roses--

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TAG8SWC

As the ultimate Valentines Day gift--for the thinking man and woman.

Sorry, it is not a children's book.

What does Love or Attachment really mean?

Who really loves Ying in the story--the medical doctors?  The Frog?  The parents?  The other relatives who live off the Twins.

Find the answer--

Book review of KM Kaung's Band of Flesh by Kauk Site Ma--

Informal book review of KM Kaung's story Band of Flesh from Kauk Site Ma--link to buy the book is below--

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TAG8SWC

Warning--spoilers!

'First of all, I love the story chosen with a name “A Band of Flesh”. 

I had read about these conjoined [Siamese] twins born to parents in about the early 1950s. I think it appeared in one of those old newspapers, which I saw in my father's wooden chest. 

Honestly, I forgot the names but they were quite famous as the first Siamese Twins in the world. I think one had 10 children, and another a dozen kids???

Wonderful, how they could  live as able-bodied human beings.

I see, it is a real suffering, that happens from the accident of birth … where the babies are connected to a single umbilical cord (sic)  (In the womb?).

They do not have privacy to bathe, eat, excrete…everything, and even when they get married (in some cases they are one male and the other female).

If I were they I would have felt like Ying.

Question is should they be separated to survive?

A fundamental problem I think is that most parents may not agree to separate their twins.
They may feel differently in ways than we thought. Then, from human rights view… those human-beings - is it right to refuse such kind of separating? Or is it to accept it as a good medical treatment?

(Editor--in some cases they cannot be separated.)

What about killing? (Euthanasia)

Doctors have to take oath that they should not take life (of babies in the womb)…….

(Editor--In USA abortions on request are legal)

Another thing flashes in my mind, thinking what if one of those twins died of say disease? Normally another would have died of fright or like what you have said about Yang and Ying in your story. This is natural because the survived twin (s/he) is attached to another dead twin. It’s so complicated…and hard to say when their connection is complex and would they have survived from being parted or not? 

There were a few cases (such as Ma Nan Soe and Ma Nan San in Burma) and many around the world today where (only) one can survive after separation.

It's an unhappy ending..  where the thin one tried  to escape her suffering  by taking pills that put her and her family into trouble. Buddhists believe the one should not commit suicide..because that person will suffer the same committing suicide for 500 times, and so one goes for 500 endless lives (a hpan nga-yar, nga gabar in Burmese)...endless life of Samsara.

So killing oneself is the same as killing another living being.

Nice reading.

Kauk Site Ma
2-9-2015

Editor--lightly edited for grammar only.