About the Author

 

Tin Tut served in the American Embassy, Rangoon for over twenty six years, and as he says, gave the best years of his life to the American Foreign Service.

 

He was born in Sagaing in 1916 into an official class family; his grandfather U Paw Shan and father U San Mya being officials in the service of the British Government. He was sent to boarding school at the age of twelve, first to St. Joseph’s Convent, Mandalay, then St. Paul’s, Rangoon and finally, St. Peter’s High School, Mandalay. In school his English name was John which his friends continued to use throughout his life.

 

He entered University of Rangoon in 1934 and he was an active participant in the famous Rangoon University Boycott of 1936, which brought forth the late Bogyoke Aung San, architect of Burmese independence and U Nu, the first Prime Minister of independent Burma. While at the university, he was a friend of U Nu and other student leaders and his contemporaries today are political leaders, high civil and military officials. Though he only four years old when the Burmese national movement initiated by the General Council of Burmese Associations began in 1920, he later became acquainted with the two top leaders of the GCBA while he was a student in college; they were U Ba Pe and U Pu, the Minister under the British Government before World War II.

 

He graduated from the University of Rangoon with a B.A. degree in 1940. He joined government service, first as a Preventive Officer in the Customs Department in 1941 and later resigned to enter the Burma Civil Service as a junior administrative officer. He resigned from the BCS in 1947 to read law at the University while serving as a tutor in the English department. He graduated with a B.L. degree in 1949, but did not practice law, as by then he had joined the American Embassy.

 

He passed away in May 1985, and the five years prior to his death were spent as Ashin Dhammadhara, a monk of the Buddhist Order, during which he wrote ‘Some Aspects of Theravada Buddhism’

 

He was survived by his wife May Tin Tut, two children and two grand children.