Dr. Thant Thaw Kaung, founder and head of the Myanmar Book Centre, Myanmar's leading book importer, distributor and publisher, has won the Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award, which is given annually by the Association of American Publishers International Freedom to Publish Committee.
For the first time, the award will be presented at BookExpo America, at the Book and Author Breakfast on Saturday, May 31.
The Laber Award recognizes "a book publisher outside of the U.S. who has demonstrated courage and fortitude in the face of restrictions on freedom of expression." Dr. Thant founded the Myanmar Book Center, which provides books and educational materials to almost all the libraries, schools and universities in Myanmar, in 1995. For much of its existence until the recent political thaw, the award organizers said, "the company's operations were carried on under the close watch of government censors and on more than one occasion, had to pull its books off store shelves under threat from the military regime."
Dr. Thant is "a tireless advocate for the country's libraries" and is executive director of the Myanmar Book Aid and Preservation Foundation, arranging book donations from overseas donors to more than 800 libraries in Myanmar. As a director of Seattle's Nargis Library Recovery Foundation, he has coordinated the digitization of traditional and rare Myanmar manuscripts for online preservation and is helping rebuild libraries in Myanmar destroyed by Cyclone Nargis. Through the Myanmar Library Foundation, he promotes reading and training programs for librarians.
