Ma Thida (Resident 2005; Visitor 2021) is a Burmese surgeon, writer, poet, human rights activist and former prisoner of conscience. Among her nine books are The Sunflower (1999), The Roadmap (2011) and the memoir Sanchaung, Insein, Harvard  (2012). Recently elected as Chair of The Writers in Prison committee of PEN International, she is the founder and past president of PEN Myanmar and past board member of PEN International; in 2016 she was the first recipient of the Václav Havel Foundation’s “Disturbing the Peace” award. At present, she is a visiting research associate at Yale’s Southeast Asia Studies program.