U Win Pe is one of Myanmar’s most celebrated living artists. Along with his close friends Kin Maung Yin and Paw Oo Thett, Win Pe was a leader of Myanmar’s modern art movement in the 1960s. In 1966, Win Pe, at age 31, was appointed Dean of the Mandalay State School of Fine Art, Music, and Dance. It was his dream job, but his vision to mix modern ideas with traditional arts conflicted with the older, conservative teaching staff, and he left after four years.

He would spend the next 15 years as a film director and short story writer. His first film, Let the Sky Not Fall, was well received and in 1981 he won Myanmar’s equivalent of the Academy Awards as Best Director for his film, Red Rose Dream. In 1993, three of Win-Pe’s short stories were published in the book, Inked Over, Ripped Out. The following year, he attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and earned an Honorary Fellowship there.