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Glossary and Character Taxonomy  Breakdown by Country of Origin   Bibliography   Table of Contents    The Best of the Encyclopedia

San Shà. San Shà was created by the Burmese author Shwe Ú-daùng and appeared in a number of stories in Thuríyá and Dagon from 1917 to 1930?, beginning with “Gyò-gya-kan Ywa Lu-that-hmú” (Thuríyá, Apr. 1917); the stories were collected in The Collected Stories of U San Shà (1930?).

San Shà is a Great Detective modeled on Sherlock Holmes. San Shà is Burmese, wears a turban and longyi (the Burmese sarong), and is active both in Rangoon and in various rural villages in the present day. The crimes Shà solves are often nearly identical to those Holmes solves.

* I'm including the San Sha stories in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because of their historical importance. Shwe Ú-daùng, a prince and one familiar with the West and its cultural products, wanted the Burmese to have their own tradition of detective and mystery stories, so he wrote a series of Great Detective stories featuring a detective overtly modeled on Sherlock Holmes, but with Burmese trappings and a half-Burmese, half-Holmesian attitude. Shwe U-daung's plan worked, for a little while, as there was a brief flourishing of Burmese detective stories in the popular magazines. What set the San Sha stories apart was that Shwe U-daung was quite familiar with Arthur Conan Doyle's work and did a thoughtful, Burmese take on Holmes, Watson, etc, while the San Sha imitators largely did not. 

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