Ludu U Hla
| Ludu U Hla လူထုဦးလှ |
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| Born |
19 January 1910 Mandalay, British Burma |
| Died | 7 August 1982 (aged 72) Mandalay, Burma |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Spouse(s) | Ludu Daw Amar |
| Children | Soe Win Than Yin Mar Po Than Gyaung Tin Win Nyein Chan |
Ludu U Hla (Burmese: လူထုဦးလှ; pronounced: [lùdṵ ʔú l̥a̰]; 19 January 1910 – 7 August 1982) was a Burmese journalist, publisher, chronicler, folklorist and social reformer whose prolific writings include a considerable number of path-breaking nonfiction works. He was married to fellow writer and journalist Ludu Daw Amar.
He collected oral histories from people in a diverse range of occupations which included a boatmaster on the Irrawaddy, a bamboo raftsman on the Salween, the keeper of a logging elephant, a broker for Steele Bros. (a large trading company during the colonial period), a gambler on horses, a bureaucrat and a reporter. These were published in a series of books titled "I the ------".
A library of 43 volumes of folk tales, a total of 1597 stories, that he collected between 1962 and 1977 from most of the ethnic minorities of Burma was a truly Herculean undertaking. Many of these have been translated into several languages. There are 5 other volumes of folktales from around the world to his credit.
During the U Nu era of parliamentary democracy, he spent over three years in Rangoon Central Jail as a political prisoner after publishing a controversial news story in his Mandalay newspaper Ludu (The People). Whilst in prison he interviewed several inmates and wrote their life stories as told in the first person narrative, the best known collection of which was published in The Caged Ones; it won the UNESCO award for literature in 1958, and has been translated into English.
Born in Pazun Myaung village near Nyaunglebin in Lower Burma, and educated at the Rangoon Government High School, by the age of 20, U Hla had secured a valuer's position with the Rangoon Municipal Corporation; the Depression had hit Burma culminating in a peasant uprising and the founding of the nationalist Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association). He joined the Lungemya Kyipwayay Athin (Progress for Youth Club) which started as the Friendly Correspondence Club cum debating society among high school students in 1926, and his high-minded reformist zeal for all-round betterment of the country's youth had remained a lifelong passion since.
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