Golden Peacock - Three-Pocketed Hawk and Other Short Stories

The Golden Peacock and the Novel in Translation

The famous writer Shwe U Daung was not only famous in the Burmese literary world as a detective novelist but also as a great translator. His works include adventure, mystery, detective, and romance novels. These works are mostly direct translations and translations.

Shwe U Daung is precise and clear in his translation, and is able to convey the original author's tone. That is why he won the Sapay Beiman Translation Award twice, which is rare among Burmese writers.

The teacher is considered to be a talented translator who has won the Sapaya Beemaan Award. He has often spoken to the author about this.

I don’t consider myself a great translator, I have translated quite a few books. And I have been working in the translation business since early on, so I have gained a reputation. Usually, when I translate novels, I don’t even look at the dictionary. If it is a novel that I hope will win the Literary Palace, I translate it as I see fit. But I take care to capture the original author’s voice.”

Although I don't think the teacher is a great translator, he must be considered the most experienced translator among Burmese writers.

After winning the Literary Manuscript Award for his novel The Land of Blood in 1955, Shwe U Daung stopped translating major novels. If he had to write other novels, he would have to rely on expert detective novels and adventure novels, so he did not write novels but only serious articles. However, he still wrote short stories from time to time.

The teacher told the author that he was trying to translate Leo Tolstoy's novel War And Peace. At that time, the movie War And Peace was shown in Mandalay in 1956. The teacher went to see the movie at the author's urging and was disappointed. The movie was not at all like the original novel and was poor.

“I don’t want to translate anymore. The novel is as good as any other book in the world. The movie doesn’t really capture the “characters” and the story isn’t complete. Compared to the book, the movie is very bad. People don’t like the movie very much. I don’t want to translate anymore. I’m afraid that people who have seen the movie will think that the movie is bad and the book is bad.”

Thus, the master's goal of translating the best version of his life was thwarted for the first time.

In 1957, Sayar Tatto wrote an article in the magazine "Den Dung Dung" (Blood Drinker), strongly criticizing plagiarized literature.

The teacher once told the author... "Tatto is already a bit of a slob, I don't want to write translated novels anymore. If I write it in a book, it will be considered plagiarism, and if I write it in a book, it won't be profitable, so I'll just write articles."

Furthermore, in a letter to the editor of Blood Drinking Magazine,

"I will only submit articles that require serious consideration. I don't want to write novels because they will be plagiarized," he wrote.

After these translation and plagiarism issues arose, towards the end of 1957, Shwe U Daung attempted to translate a major novel. At the behest of Shumawa Magazine, he decided to translate Tolstoy's War and Peace.

The author happily urged the teacher to translate it. However, he was unsuccessful. The reason is this.

In May 1958, while the Master was preparing to go to Yangon after arranging to translate, he fell ill. The Master was rarely ill. At that time, the Master had been ill for almost a month, and the task of translating was too much for him to bear, so he had to give up.

"War and Peace is the best book in the world. So it can't be done like the old days when books were translated. It has to be done carefully, meticulously, and with great care. I am old and can't bear the pain. Let others do it."

This is what Master Shwe U Daung told the author. In fact, I think that the great novel War and Peace would be best translated by Master.

The author began writing translated novels in 1916, spanning 43 years. He wrote both adapted and directly translated foreign literature.

When he was young, he was very good at English and read many English books. He read books by world-famous writers such as Reynolds, Macaulay, Dickens, Scott, and Dumas. In 1916, at the urging of Thuriya U Ba Ba, he translated and wrote a suitable translation of Mrs. Henry Wood's East Lynne Vutthu under the title Yadana Pon.

The novel Yadanabon was published as a school textbook in 1953 and was also made into a film by A-One.

The great scholar wrote about the novel Yadanapon... "One of the unique things about the novel Yadanapon is that at the time I wrote it, I was in the most difficult financial period of my life, and I didn't even have a table or chair, so I wrote it from beginning to end on a large teak box." He wrote in his own book, Atkapatti Sa Up.

After translating the Yadanabon Vutthu into English, it became popular, and he began to write novels based on Burmese stories from foreign novels. At that time, the teacher did not use the pen name “Shwe U Daung” but wrote under the pseudonym “Mandalar Thein”. Even in the book translated by Maurice Collis under the name Saw Devi, the name Shwe U Daung was not mentioned.

While working at the Suriya Library, the Master borrowed a book from the late writer Pee Moe Ning. He liked the book so much that he said, “It would be good if you could write it in Burmese using the Yadanarbon method.” Pee Moe Ning said, “If you want to do it, take it.” Here, the Master wrote a book based on Sir Rider Haggard’s novel She under the pen name Rupa Nandi.

The author Thuriyaka, who wanted to write a novel about the beauty of Rupanandi's attire, wrote the following in his book:

“When the novel Rupanandi was published in the Suriya Daily, we saw firsthand that although the story of the novel was not credible, people who had not read or heard of Sir Rider Haggard’s novel She, believed that it was based on a true story.

The author has never been to the place where Rupanandi lived, nor has he seen Queen Rupanandi. However, the author has described her surroundings and feelings in a way that is so imaginative and natural that it seems to be a very real and plausible biography in the minds of the readers.”

After writing the novel "Rupanandi", Shwe U Daung began writing detective novels based on Sherlock Holmes novels in the magazine "Shuriya" from 1917. He wanted to keep it close to the original name of Sherlock Holmes. So, he added a "Shah" and named it "Maung San Shah".

Shwe U Daung wrote many translated novels. He also translated many translated books published by the Christian Literature Association in 1930.