Thant Myint-U | |
|---|---|
| သန့်မြင့်ဦး | |
| Born | (1966-01-31)31 January 1966 (age 59) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Harvard University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Johns Hopkins University University of Cambridge |
| Known for | Historian Conservationist (colonial architecture) |
| Spouse | Sofia Busch |
| Children | Thurayn-Harri |
| Parent(s) | Tyn Myint-U Aye Aye Thant |
| Relatives | U Thant (grandfather) Khin Lay Myint-U (sister) A-thi Myint-U (sister) Aye Myint Myint-U (sister) |
| Awards | Fukuoka Grand Prize Padma Shri |
Thant Myint-U (Burmese:သန့်မြင့်ဦး[θa̰ɰ̃mjɪ̰ɰ̃ʔú]; born 31 January 1966) is an historian, writer, grandson of former United NationsSecretary-GeneralU Thant, former UN official, former Myanmar peace process mediator, and an Honorary Fellow ofTrinity College, Cambridge.[1] He has authored five books, includingThe River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma andWhere China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia.[2][3][4] He founded theYangon Heritage Trust in 2012 to protect built heritage and promote urban planning in the Burmese commercial capital ofYangon.[5] He is also a Distinguished Visiting Scholar atChrist's College, Cambridge and United Nations Special Adviser on Humanitarian Diplomacy.[6][7]
Thant Myint-U was born inNew York City toBurmese parents. He grew up inRiverdale, Bronx at the home of his maternal grandfather, the then-Secretary-General of the United Nations U Thant. From 1971 to 1980, he studied atRiverdale Country School, a private college-preparatory day school in Bronx.[8] He graduated fromInternational School Bangkok in 1983.[9] He has three sisters.[10]
Thant earned aB.A. in government and economics fromHarvard University, anMA in international relations and international economics fromJohns Hopkins University, and hisPhD in history fromCambridge University in 1996. From 1996 to 1999, he was a Fellow ofTrinity College, Cambridge,[11] where he taught history.[12][unreliable source?][self-published source?]
He served on three UN peacekeeping operations. He first served as a human rights officer from 1992 to 1993 at the UN Transitional Authority forCambodia inPhnom Penh. In 1994, he was the spokesman for theUN Protection Force in the formerYugoslavia, based inSarajevo. In 1996, he was a political adviser in the Office of the UN's Special Representative forBosnia and Herzegovina.[13]
In 2000, he joined the UN Secretariat in New York. He worked first at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, then at theUnited Nations Department of Political Affairs, and at the Policy Planning Unit as a chief in 2004.[14] During this time, he was a member of the secretariat of the Secretary-General's Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (High Level Threat Panel).[15] From the late 2005 to early 2006, he was briefly a senior officer at the Executive Office of the Secretary-General.[16]
Aside from being chairman of the Yangon Heritage Trust, he was, from 2011 to 2015, a member of the National Economic and Social Advisory Council,[17] special adviser to the Myanmar government for the peace process at theMyanmar Peace Centre, senior research fellow of the Myanmar Development Resources Institute, and member of the Fund Board of the (Myanmar) Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund.[18][19][20]
During a December 2019 book tour in the US, Thant expressed his forebodings about Myanmar's future. In an interview with Singapore'sThe Straits Times, Thant remarked that the threat ofclimate change made him pessimistic about the country's future. "I think whatever we think of the [Myanmar's] ledger in general, perhaps it comes to 50/50," he said. "When you add on what is almost certainly going to be the impact of globalclimate change on Burma, I think it's hard to be too optimistic right now."[21]
Thant has written extensively forThe New York Times,The Washington Post, theLos Angeles Times[22] theInternational Herald Tribune, theLondon Review of Books,[23] theNew Statesman, theFar Eastern Economic Review,Time[24] andThe Times Literary Supplement. He was awarded the "Asia Pacific Awards" (Asian Affairs Research Council and Mainichi Newspapers) "Special Prize" in November 2014 forWhere China Meets India.[25] His bookThe Hidden History of Burma was released in November 2019. It was chosen as one of the New York Times "Top Books of 2019"[26] and a
For his efforts to preserve Yangon's built heritage, he was named by theForeign Policy magazine as one of the "100 Leading Global Thinkers" in its annual list in 2013.[28][29] He was voted 15th inProspect magazine's annual online poll of the "World's Leading Thinkers" in 2014 in a list which feature many notable Indians includingKaushik Basu.[30] In 2015, he receivedFukuoka Prize, awarded by the city of Fukuoka.[31] In 2018, he receivedPadma Shri, the fourth-ranked civilian award in India.[32]
Thant is married to Sofia Busch.[33] He has a son, Thurayn Myint-U, born in 1999 to Hanna Styrmisdóttir, a granddaughter of Iceland's first female mayor,Hulda Jakobsdóttir.[34][35][36]
