Welcome, this is Kyaw Hsan Hlaing! 

Born and raised in a small, remote village in Mrauk-U township, I read Arakan history, politics, stories, and poems through a comparative perspective.

I went to a public high school about five miles from my village, where I lived in a charity monastery that took in students like me. At eighteen, I went to work in China as an undocumented worker, my first time so far from home.

I left home when I was twenty, and I haven’t had the chance to go back since. Most of what I write is about my home state: the people I grew up with, the changes they have lived through, and the everyday moments that rarely make the news. Yet I often feel trapped behind my own silence.  

Some of these stories appeared in newspapers and magazines, and many of them are now gathered in this collection, Dispatches from Arakan.

These days, I also study and teach politics, still trying to understand the changes I write about. Outside of my work, I enjoy reading a novel, cooking, hiking with a camera, or playing football and tennis.

Please get in touch with kh827@cornell.edu