Maung Yin Maung and Ma Me Ma by James Hla Gyaw is widely regarded as the first novel written by a citizen of Myanmar, and yet in the introduction to the first English translation produced in 2014, it is described as ‘a novel being the first in the language.’

Now that is quite a twisted way to describe the first novel from Myanmar, unless, of course, it isn’t.  It is the first novel in Myanmar written in Burmese. 

An earlier novel, probably the true ‘first’ novel ever written b...