Aung San Suu Kyi's former aide Ma Thida on prison, hopes for Myanmar, and The Lady
Ma Thida is not one to mince words. The author, doctor and activist talks to Lijia Zhang about being a bad prisoner but a good citizen, and why she doesn't always agree with Aung San Suu Kyi.
When Dr Ma Thida was released from Yangon's Insein Prison, in 1999, she thanked her jailers.
"I had always wanted to write a prison memoir, just like some of my activist friends had done," says the physician-turned-writer and human rights activist. "So they fulfilled my wish."
The Burmese version of her memoir - titled Sanchaung, Insein, Harvard - came out in 2012, and she is putting the final touches to the English edition. The book, vividly written, marks Ma Thida out as one of the most important writers in Myanmar.
We are sitting in the small office in downtown Yangon from where Ma Thida runs a youth magazine and a weekly literary journal. At 49, her smooth skin gives her the look of a younger woman, and beneath her electric blue traditional Burmese-style top, matching longyi and calm demeanour, she radiates a restless energy.
In many respects, Ma Thida's personal story reflects the recent history of Myanmar. In October 1993, the young doctor was imprisoned for 20 years for actively supporting Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the opposition party. The official charge: "endangering public peace, having contact with illegal organisations and distributing unlawful literature." Her early release, on humanitarian grounds, was partly due to international pressure and her declining health - she has suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis, among other ailments. She also believes that the prison authorities had had enough of her.
"I was a very bad prisoner," she recalls, with a gentle smile, her black eyes sparkling behind a pair of black-framed spectacles.