Ludu Daw Amar

Ludu Daw Amar (also Ludu Daw Ah Mar; , ; 29 November 1915 – 7 April 2008) was a dissident writer and journalist based in Mandalay, Burma. She was married to fellow writer and journalist Ludu U Hla and was the mother of popular writer Nyi Pu Lay. She is best known for her outspoken anti-government views and left-wing journalism. She also produced work on traditional Burmese arts, including theatre, dance, and music, and translated several works from English, both fiction and non-fiction.

Student writer and activist Born into an old established Mandalay family that traded in tobacco and manufactured cheroots, Amar was the fourth in a family of twelve, of whom only six survived to adulthood. She was educated at the American Baptist Mission School and subsequently the National High School under the headmaster Abdul Razak who later became the Education Minister in Aung San's cabinet and was assassinated with him and others in July 1947. She read science at the Mandalay Intermediate College and went on to Rangoon University for a bachelor's degree.

Her first notable work was a translation of Trials in Burma by Maurice Collis in 1938. By that time, she had already been published in the university's Owei (အိုးဝေ, Peacock’s Call) magazine and Kyipwa Yay (ကြီးပွားရေးမဂ္ဂဇင်း, Progress), which was run by her future husband, U Hla, under her own name as well as the pen names Mya Myint Zu and Khin La Win.

When the second university students strike in history broke out in 1936, Amar and her friend from Mandalay M.A. Ma Ohn became famous as women student leaders among the strikers camped out on the terraces of the Shwedagon Pagoda. U Hla was a staunch supporter of the strike and started courting Amar; in 1939, they got married and U Hla moved his magazine to Mandalay.

Wartime Kyipwa Yay The family fled to the countryside north of Mandalay when the Second World War broke out in the East in 1942, but the magazine continued to come out. Daw Amar translated one of the three wartime bestsellers of the Japanese soldier writer Hino Ashihei called Wheat and Soldiers (, ) and published it together with the other two translated by her husband. She also translated The Rainbow (, Thettant yaung) by the Polish-Soviet writer Wanda Wasilewska in 1945, printed on blue matchbox wrapping paper, the only kind of paper available at the time. Both husband and wife became involved in the Resistance movement against the Japanese Occupation, and formed the Asha Lu Nge (, Asia Youth) organisation in Mandalay. Their incisive political commentaries and analyses made a significant contribution to the country's yearning for independence and unified struggle against colonial rule. Their publications had never carried advertisements for alcohol, drugs to enhance sexual performance or gambling, nor racing tips, salacious affairs and gossip. U Hla had to be persuaded to make an exception of film advertisements for the survival of the paper. They had five children by now, with the youngest Nyein Chan ( his given name means 'peace' in Burmese, pseudonym Nyi Pu Lay b. 1952) barely a toddler. In March 1959 the paper was sealed off by the authorities, and it did not come out again until May the next year. Amar travelled to Moscow in 1962 as an invited guest by Aeroflot Russian Airlines and visited East Germany, Czechoslovakia and China. She was arrested together with her husband and their youngest son Nyein Chan in 1978, after her second son Po Than Gyaung went underground to join the Communist Party of Burma (current spokesman for the CPB) just like his late brother Soe Win before him in 1963. Daw Amar and Nyein Chan were not released for more than a year from prison until later in 1979 after U Hla had been released. Nyein Chan was re-arrested in December 1989 this time to spend nearly 10 years in prison.

U Hla died in 1982 after 43 years of marriage, five children and six grandchildren. The Ludu couple had been one of the best known husband-and-wife teams among the Burmese literati. Daw Amar suffered another loss when her printing plants and warehouses burnt down in the great fire of 1984 that wiped out the heart of Mandalay. She remained active in public life and was instrumental in founding the Byamazo Luhmuyay Athin (Mutual Voluntary Aid Association) in 1998 engaged in helping poor families with the cost of healthcare and funeral arrangements. Her home was Ludu Taik in Mandalay with her second daughter Tin Win (b. 1947) in charge of the publishing business and her youngest son Nyein Chan (writer Nyi Pu Lay – b. 1952) and his family. Her oldest daughter Than Yin Mar (b. 1943), a retired professor of medicine who has also started writing assuming one of her mother's old pen names Mya Myint Zu, looked after her health. She was survived by her two sons, two daughters and six grandchildren.