Novel
ဗညားနွဲ့
Not translated into English
Ledipandita U Maung Gyi · 1928
Synopsis
Binnya Nwe, son of the Mon king Binnya U, loses his mother shortly after his birth and grows up with his aunt, Princess Maha Dewi. He bears the mark of a wheel under his foot, a sign of greatness, but his big head, curly hair and rough limbs earn him the contempt of his father, who doubts that he is his son; humiliated, the prince goes so far as to turn his sword against himself. He then abducts his half-sister Tala Mi Daw, which earns him prison and the threat of death, and then has to foil the schemes of the minister Smin Maru.
Context
Thida Aung cites the book in volumes dated from 1928 to 1931. The author says he wrote it to remind the Mons and the Burmese of the greatness of their ancestors; he draws it from the royal chronicles and from the Rajadhiraja Ayedawbon, a Mon chronicle of the sixteenth century, which he enriches with thoughts, love scenes and regrets, and he softens the cruelty that the chronicles attribute to the king towards his sister-wife and their son. He had paved the way in 1919 with a fictionalised chronicle about a poet prince.
Who it is for
A long historical novel in Burmese, which assumes knowledge of the Mon kingdom of Pegu in the fourteenth century; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
Studied in 2020 by the Myanmar Academy of Arts and Sciences as an example of a historical figure recreated by the novel.