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Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee, Ma Thida
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Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee, Ma Thida

For this special episode of Podstreet, Writing WA's Laurie Steed speaks with award-winning dissident writer and human rights activist from Myanmar, Ma Thida.
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Ma Thida is an award-winning dissident writer and human rights activist from Myanmar. She spent six years in prison in the 1990s, which she wrote about in her acclaimed memoir, Prisoner of Conscience: My Steps through Insein. In the book she details her use of vipassana meditation to get her through the untold hardships of jail. 
 
Ma Thida has published more than a dozen books as well as short stories and she has worked as an editor and a surgeon. She was awarded the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award and the Reebok Human Rights Award and is currently the chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee. 

If you’re in Western Australia, don’t miss these two forthcoming PEN events with Ma Thida:

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