Wa along with Nwe Soe, Zawgyi, Min Thu Wun and Mya Kaytu, while still at university and after, in the decade before the Second World War. During the Hkit san movement, University of Rangoon students innovated new styles of writing, with shorter and clearer sentences, and unadorned prose, a radical transformation from royal writings of the pre-colonial eras beforehand. The movement for independence continued to fuel Burmese literature. Thakin Kodaw Hmaing was greatly influential in spawning this anti-colonial literature with his powerful laygyo gyi () and htika () verses famous for their patriotic and satirical content. Hmawbi Hsaya Thein was particularly influential, with Bazat yazawin (Oral Chronicles), which relied on oral tradition. Novels also came into vogue, with the first being James Hla Kyaw's Maung Yin Maung Ma Me Ma, written in 1904 and inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo. Kala paw wut-htu (, 'modern novels') became popular during this era, with P Moe Nin writing the first Burmese novels to focus on the individual and place that character at the centre of the plot. Theippan Maung Wa and Thein Pe Myint were among other original and innovative authors from the colonial period. Female writers, such as Dagon Khin Khin Lay, who wrote about the hardships of peasant life under colonialism, also gained prominence during the nationalist period leading up to independence. The British author George Orwell, who was severely critical of British colonialism, wrote Burmese Days published in 1935. In addition, literary culture in Burma expanded to the masses during this period, with the arrival of printing presses and publishers, such as the Hanthawaddy Press, a major publisher of Burmese and Buddhist works established by Phillip Ripley. In the 1920s to the 1930s, monthly literary magazines like Dagon and Ganda Lawka (World of Classics) were published to connect readers to writers, who often published novels in serial installations. Post-independence literature (1948-) After independence in 1948, Burmese literature developed further to adopt and assimilate Western styles of writing. A year earlier, the Burmese Translation Society, a government-subsidised organisation, was founded to translate foreign works, especially those related to the fields of science and technology. In 1963, a year after the socialist coup, the society was merged into the Sapay Beikman (), a government publishing house. Another influential publisher was the Pagan Press (est. 1962), which translated Socialist and Marxist works into Burmese. In 1976, the first Burmese Encyclopedia ()