Yangon Heritage Trust founder and chairman Thant Myint-U received the annual Fukuoka Prize’s top award yesterday during a ceremony at the Park Royal Hotel.
Named after the Japanese city described as the country’s cultural gateway, the Fukuoka Prize was founded in 1990 with the help of local government, academics and businesses, according to its website.
Recipients are nominated and then selected by a prize committee, which gives out three awards: the Grand Prize, the Academic Prize and the Arts and Culture Prize.
Ramachandra Guha, an Indian historian, won in the Academic category, while Arts and Culture went to Minh Hanh, a fashion designer in Vietnam.
The Grand Prize is bestowed on an “individual/group who has made outstanding contributions to the preservation and creation of Asian culture and have exhibited the significance of Asian culture to the world through the internationality, universality, popularity and/or creativity of their work.”
The citation for Thant Myint-U praises his work in a variety of fields, including preservation with the Yangon Heritage Trust, and history, through his three highly-regarded books on Myanmar.
Thant Myint-U “has been able to see society and listen to people with his own curious eyes and sensitive ears,” the citation says. “Evoking such simple but unforgettable firsthand learnings, he writes accessible history, echoing the unknown, unrecorded, but precious experience of ordinary people.”
His role as an advisor to President Thein Sein and his efforts with the Myanmar Peace Centre on ceasefire agreements with the country’s many ethnic rebel groups were also highlighted.
The prize comes with a monetary award of about 5 million yen, or about $40,000. On his Facebook page, Thant Myint-U says he will donate some of the money to flood relief efforts. He’ll travel to Japan in September for an official ceremony in Fukuoka.
According to a copy of his comments posted on Facebook, he said he hopes the award will “draw attention to Myanmar’s unique history and cultural diversity, its potential.”
You can read his full remarks here.
Photo of Thant Myint-U (R) receiving award / Facebook / Thant Myint-U
