Kyi May Kaung is a Burmese-American writer based in the United States, noted for her searing depictions of life in third and fourth world countries and her renditions of strange points of view, such as the first person narrative of a stripper (The Lovers) or of a Lion who falls in love with a human princess (Beast).
She has written a novel, Wolf, short stories, novellas, monologues and a play and screenplay, Shaman, that was praised by Edward Albee.
She also writes poetry and has done dozens of readings in N. America, Europe and Southeast Asia. She has published two poetry chapbooks,Pelted with Petals: The Burmese Poems, and Tibetan Tanka, and is in the process of publishing more.
She is a winner of the William Carlos Williams Award of the Academy of American Poets and has won a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Award for Shaman, when it was still a one paragraph outline for a play called Flashback. It has since had a script-in-hand reading in Washington, DC.
Kyi was also a Pew finalist twice in Literature, for Shee-Monkey goes West, an allegory in poetry and prose, and for her two act play Shaman.
She worked for 13 years in the overseas Burmese democracy movement,as well as being a senior research analyst on air, in international broadcasting to Burma 1997-2001. She then worked as a senior analyst for The Burma Fund, affiliated with the Burmese Democratic Government in Exile.
Ms. Kaung holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in Political Economy and City Planning, respectively.
Her formal education informs the depth of understanding evident in her writings.
5-27-2014
