This book won National Literary Award in 1993. Early 90s were the dawn of apartment-living lifestyle in Burma. This book portrays everyday lives of five families who live in a Hong Kong-style apartment located in fictional 'Mya Sein Pyar street' of actual Kamaryut township. This is the best portrayal of middle class Yangonites in the 90s (still mostly relevant though). My favorite Burmese novel of all time. First time I read this book was around 2007. Nu Nu Yi (Innwa) became my favorite novelist after reading this book. I read in again in 2019. I didn't notice the narrative style or prose style while reading for the first time as I was pretty young back then. When I read it for the second time, I loved it even more for the way it was structured and the way her prose is so smooth to read. Likes of Nu Nu Yi (Innwa) and her mentor, Mg Tha Ra, are unconventional novelists, in my opinion. Their narrative style is void of corny cliche, overly melodramatic, overly masculine or feminine (and lame) characters or dialogues. When you read their writings, you won't read about heroes, cheesy dialogues, or how the wind is the blown or how the leaves move. Environmental description is minimal. It's just pure and realistic lives of ordinary people with their interesting and unique stories. This book, 'Mya Sein Pyar Kamaryut', will always be one of the best examples for Realism genre of Burmese literature.
I could only say 'What a great piece of novel'. If the combination of simple events could even turn out to be beautiful, it is this novel. Since I also live in the apartment, which has more or less the same condition as those in the book, I really understand the characters inside the novel. Growing up in the dictator regime and people missing their rights and the worst of it is that they don't even realized that they are missing their own rights. Yes, that's exactly what happened to me and many others from my country Myanmar. The author smartly concocted such events and organized in a masterful way. It's impossible not to enjoy the book from the beginning to the end !