– Min Yu Wai aka Win Maung received the Thuta Swesone Lifetime Achievement Literary Award.

– Maung Moe Thu won in the arts category for Profiles of Prominent Deceased Writers and Artists.

–  Pe Myint won in the reference category for Book World.

– Win Htut Zaw won in the social economic category for Petroleum.

– Maung Khin Min won in the belles-lettres category for A Life of a Visiting Professor in Osaka.

– Ko Swe won in the science category.

– Kyi Shoon won in the translation category for Business Success.

– There were no winners in youth literature, international affairs and applied science genres.

Maung Moe Thu is a former member of the National League for Democracy, a film director and current chief editor of Kumudra Journal.

Pe Myint’s Book World is a compendium of information about revolutionary books, major libraries in the world, the greatest banned books and writers who were tortured or sent to prison because of their beliefs. In 1995, Pe Myint won the National Literary award for Human Organs for Sale and Other Short Stories. He is a former editor of Sarpay Journal and current chief editor of People’s Era Journal.

The book of essays by Maung Khin Min (retired Burmese professor, Dr. Khin Aye) is about his experiences from 1997 to 1999 as a Burmese language professor in Osaka, Japan. He wrote about Japanese culture, traditions, Japanese attitudes on Burma, Japanese education standards and cultural exchanges between the two countries. His book contains interviews with Japanese veterans who were in Burma during World War II. Maung Khin Min also won the National Literary award in the belles-lettres category for My Views on Language and Literature, published in 2009, making him the first writer to win two awards in the same category in the same year.

Win Htut Zaw is a prominent essayist and a former political activist. He won the National Literary award in the translation (non-fiction) genre for Blood and Petroleum.

Min Yu Wai, the Thuta Swesone Lifetime Achievement Literary Award winner, also won the National Literary Award in the translation genre in 1954 for Aesop’s Tales. He and writer Htin Lin launched Ngwetaryi Magazine in 1960. He also published a children journal during nineteen-nineties.        

A literary prize presentation ceremony will be held on May 1 in Rangoon. The Lifetime Achievement Literary Award winner will be awarded 600,000 kyat (about US$ 690) and other award winners will receive 300,000 kyat ($ 345).

Last year, Chit San Win won the Thuta Swesone Lifetime Achievement Literary Award. The sponsor of the award is Dr. Tin Tun Oo, the cofounder of the Myanmar Times.

Observers of the literary community noted that writers who are former political prisoners or who have criticized the government or who write in a modern or post-modern style have never won the National Literary Award.