[2] Upon his release in April 1997, he left the country for Singapore, and worked for humanitarian organizations in Bangkok (Thailand) and in Europe.
He read political science and cultural anthropology at universities in Helsinki (Finland), Vienna (Austria) and Leuven (Belgium).
[2] He was a recipient of the 2012 English PEN Writers in Translation Programme Award for Bones will Crow, an anthology of 15 contemporary Burmese poets, he co-edited with James Byrne.
[4][2] Following a residency at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in the United States in 2016, and a book tour, he returned to Myanmar in 2017.
His book, Bamboophobia, was shortlisted for the 2022 Walcott Poetry Prize.