Contemporary poet and literary scholar Min Thu Wun has commented that modern Burmese literature and political thought would be impossible to imagine without the works of Kodaw Hmaing. Maung Lun, later known as Thakin Kodaw Hmaing, was born on March 23, 1876 in Wale Village, Shwedaung Township. In 1894 he moved to Rangoon, where he began his career as a playwright. Later turning to journalism, he published his first articles in a newspaper in Moulmein. But in 1911, just as the Burmese nationalist movement was gaining strength, he returned to the capital to work for the Suria newspaper.