Myanmar festival celebrates new literary freedom

Dozens of renowned international and local writers gathered on Friday at Myanmar’s first international literary festival to celebrate the country’s new-found freedom of expression.

Authors hailed the festival – supported by Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi – as a breakthrough for creativity after years lost to stifling censorship rules under the generals who ruled the country for decades.

“There was no freedom at all before,” said poet Saw Wai, who was jailed under the former junta for writing a satirical poem about the regime.

“As censorship has been abolished, we have become able to be more free and open,” he said, adding that poetry and cartoons were becoming increasingly “bold” with their satire.

For decades censors vetted every article, book manuscript, photograph and illustration before publication, eliminating anything considered inflammatory or damaging to the nation’s former military rulers.

But the quasi-civilian government that took office in early 2011 has effectively abolished direct censorship as part of the reforms sweeping the country.

Organisers of the Irrawaddy Literary Festival want to exploit Myanmar’s new freedoms to encourage bolder writing and debate.