Literature

[khaolakguy]

GWMinus provides an excellent list of books. Particularly recommend the books of Pira Sudham, about village life, which are I think fairly autobiographical.

[paborn]

It doesn't appear from your quote that the author is confusing Soi Twilight with Patpong, as it does indeed run off Surawong, in the entertainment district known as Patpong.

Yes, I know where it is. However, Patpong is an area owned by the Patpong family. Plaza Thaniya or the Japanese Soi also runs off Suriwongse, Soi TanTawan runs off Suriwongse but who would ever say that Tawan Bar or the Japanese places are in Patpong. Is Moonlight in Patpong?  Sorry, I read his book years ago and it is a screed written by a man ran out of Thailand and Cambodia for his "adventures" 

[forrestreid]

I must say, I found works of Pira Sudham rather deathly boring.  He writes his stories with a particular social message he wants to convey in mind and he tends to bash you over the head with it. If you want to read some short stories set in the north-east Isaan  region, I would suggest the "Moonlight in the Morning"  by Andrea McNicoll. It is a set of interlinked short stories in a in village life in Isaan where the women are the main protagonists. 

Another good read is "Mindfulness and Murder", by Nick Wilgus, a murder mystery set in a Buddhist monastery.

I would also highly recommend "Very Thai" by Philip Cornwell Smith. It is great book to get you in the mood for Thailand before you go, especially if you have been before and will recognise so many of the things in it. It is like a little mini encyclopaedia of all things uniquely Thai,  he has a short chapter on each the little cultural quirks of Thailand, and it is brilliantly illustrated as well with photographs.

[Terry4]

Does anyone like those ever increasing " jail" books where a ex prisoner writes of their incareceration usualky describing some hellhole.

 

I did read The Damage done & not without my daughter but not my cup of tea

[PeterRS]

I would also highly recommend "Very Thai" by Philip Cornwell Smith. It is great book to get you in the mood for Thailand before you go, especially if you have been before and will recognise so many of the things in it. It is like a little mini encyclopaedia of all things uniquely Thai,  he has a short chapter on each the little cultural quirks of Thailand, and it is brilliantly illustrated as well with photographs.

 

Philip lives locally in Bangkok. Another book of interest more to those who have visited Bangkok and think they know it well is Bangkok Found by Alex Kerr. They will soon find they don't know it nearly as well as they thought! Kerr also lives locally and is an accomplished writer. His Lost Japan won that country's highest literary award. He remains the only foreigner ever to have won it. He wanders through many topics that give Thailand its unique 'Thainess'. He also has an interesting view on the sex scene in the city.

[Londoner]

Yes, it's  a beautiful book, full of interesting facts about Thailand with interesting photos.

[paborn]

Bangkok Found is wonderful. scholarly without one noticing it just a superb read.

[anddy]

Kenneth Barrett - 22 Walks in Bangkok: Exploring the City's Historic Back Lanes and Byways 

[paborn]

Another good read is "Mindfulness and Murder", by Nick Wilgus, a murder mystery set in a Buddhist monastery.

 

Thanks, Forressteind

 

I just read book one and two and they are terrific reads.

[pong]

As I will step in the plane tomorrow just about some other subjects:

BKK-city:

bangkok inside out

A geek in Thailand, both likely out of print and much more uptodate and alternative as that rather meek Very Thai.

About Thai language:

entertaining and probably with lots of explanations you did not know about:

In the bedroom, out of trouble )yes, str8, but gives you loads of info too)

Heart Talk , about how the Thai see emotions and what words to use

 both also print long ago but last yr still to be found in some booksops in BKK

And for the lucky few who really know about speaking Thai etc/

Outrageous Thai, assumed to controversial to be printed in Th so that was done in SIN, Tuttle press-periplus. i bought mine in KUL.

[paborn]

A Geek in Thailand is available as a Kindle download on Amazon

[hank75]

On 11/21/2018 at 11:56 AM, PeterRS said:

Someone mentioned Cocktail Boys about gogo bar life in Thailand. There is little in the story lines we have not read somewhere before. I found it quite boring and did not enjoy it.

I thought the same initially but was on a long boring plane ride and persisted, and it ended up hooking me in. Quite a few flaws but decent for a self published series, I ended up reading all three books. One anecdote however has been directly lifted from Private Dancer!

Thumbs up for Bangkok People by John Eckardt, a collection of character profiles originally written as magazine articles. 

Made a start on Jasmine Nights which I thought would be right up my street, but DNF though the author writes well.

Read The Quiet American a decade ago, time for a revisit.

Twilight Soi by William Stapleton was thoroughly rubbished on the Bangkokbois blog at the time of its release as a ridiculous and paranoid flight of fancy, riddled with errors. Will post link to review if I can find it again. 

Working my way through the other recommendations now. 

 

 

[forrestreid]

On 11/25/2018 at 7:33 PM, paborn said:

Another good read is "Mindfulness and Murder", by Nick Wilgus, a murder mystery set in a Buddhist monastery.

 

Thanks, Forressteind

 

I just read book one and two and they are terrific reads.

Glad you liked it paborn, I believe a film was made from the story later, however I have never seen it.

[hank75]

Maverick Publishers has several books on Thailand, quick easy reads and good for the beach or plane.

I recommend The Last Executioner, a look at Bang Kwang prison in the 1980s. Lady Boys is an anthology of personal histories from real lady boys, pretty much what you’d expect, both gut wrenching and repetitive; however some might find the stories of Nong, who was a personality around Soi Twilight till her death, and Sarah, who ran the “HomyInn” a gay hotel in Pattaya leased from the owner of the Rose Hotel, interesting. Too many “farangs on a journey of self discovery” memoirs. 

https://www.maverickhouse.com/books/

[PeterRS]

I have just finished an amazing first novel - The Final Retreat by Stephen Hough. It is a short book, less than 200 pages the size of a paperback. But it packs an almighty punch. To try and explain any detail of the story is to give away too much. So I will just say it is a series of entries into a notebook penned by a Catholic priest. No, this is not about pedophiles. But it is about being gay and being a priest. It is also very much a novel of opposites: loneliness and the desire for companionship, yearning and disgust, futility and the need for justification, age and youth, despair and the ache after even brief moments of ecstasy. The writing is quite superb. 

Hough is one of today's foremost classical concert pianists, a painter and goodness knows what else. The Economist magazine named him as one of 20 living polymaths - whatever that may mean! On the basis of The Final Retreat, he is destined to become an equally acclaimed writer. 

[reader]

From NPR - US (16 Feb.)

NPR's Scott Simon speaks with author Pitchaya Sudbanthad about his novel Bangkok Wakes to Rain. The book threads the history of Thailand with the modern world.

Listen to the interview:

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/16/695420288/pitchaya-sudbanthad-on-bangkok-wakes-to-rain

 

[TotallyOz]

Great literature?  Look no further.  Right here on this site, we have a series of 10 short stories.

 

[reader]

A new gay voice has published his first novel to wide acclaim.

From the Wall Street Journal Magazine

Ocean Vuong: America “Has Amnesia” About Tiger Woods

How do we salvage an Asian-American identity that has been erased by the media? Poet Ocean Vuong poses the question about Woods as part of his acclaimed novel, ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’—while also examining the experience of immigrants in a culture that conflates conformity with survival

The 30-year-old Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong structures his semi-autobiographical debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, as a long, devastating letter. It’s written by the narrator, Little Dog, to his mother, who is still shattered by the Vietnam War and living unmoored in America. Little Dog serves as a translator to his mother, who is illiterate. “I took off our language and wore my English, like a mask, so that others would see my face, and therefore yours,” writes Little Dog. The character wants to be seen, and he wants his mother to be seen, so he tries to make sense of their lives as refugees by writing down their story, using words she may never read. Vuong, the author of the shattering, tender 2016 poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds, brings the same magic to his prose.

WSJ. spoke to Vuong by phone from his home in Northampton, Massachusetts about both the danger and importance of being seen as an immigrant in America, and why “cancel culture” isn’t the best way to make strides in literature.

 

WSJ. Magazine: Tell us the differences between publishing a novel and poetry.
Ocean Vuong: Any poet would tell you that you’re happy just to have a book of poems out into the world so you can tell your mother that you’ve done something with your life in the past ten years. Publishing a novel is a bit more like a parade, and I’m not a parade person. But I know it means that I did my job as a writer, that I made something that seemed interesting beyond my own gains.

How much do you talk to your mother about what you do, and how much does she know about the book?
I try to tell her but she’s not interested. To some extent it’s a relief. She’s very practical and a lot of the publishing world is almost beyond her imagination. She gets that I do these things; she doesn’t know why. She gets readings. She likes going to them. In fact, she can’t understand the words so she sits adjacent to me and looks at the audience. She says “I like what your words do to their faces.”

I love how in the novel Little Dog describes to his mother what writing feels like for him.
Little Dog really hopes that his mother would be able to read it, but still he can only say some of the things he says to her in the letter because he knows the chances are slim. It felt like the crisis of the moment for me: As Americans we often ask ourselves “Does my voice matter? Do I have a voice? Does my vote count?” These are obvious concerns on the political level, but it also feels potent on the private, domestic level. What happens when the person we are closest to doesn’t hear us? What happens if we spend our whole lives inches away from somebody and our language fails us, or rather we fail language’s potential?

The protagonist is told from a very young age that being Vietnamese means he shouldn’t draw any more attention to himself. It’s a survival mechanism. He’s trying to write, so he’s trying to make himself known while his mother tried to erase him in order to protect him. The urge to blend in and be invisible is very common among refugee, immigrant communities. There’s an old Vietnamese saying: “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” Conformity as a means of survival is a part of an intergenerational clash in the diasporan experience. Do I say I’m Vietnamese or do I hide it? He realizes that he can only be Vietnamese-American, that it’s not even a choice.

Little Dog refers to Tiger Woods as another product of this world that both you and he inhabit. What led you to Tiger Woods?
I always knew Tiger Woods had roots in the Vietnam War. His father was a soldier there. How come we don’t hear about Woods’s origin? It’s an American phenomenon, as a culture, that we’re often wary of talking about someone’s pre-history. Because if we go pre- enough we’ll arrive at slavery and American genocide. So understandably, those in power, and those looking at this country in review, have amnesia. The same goes for isolated sports figures and celebrities. They are better as individual phenomenons that exist within the context of the sport. An interesting thing about Woods is that he often has his mother and father standing beside him on the green. That’s rare. We don’t see that in football. But few people have asked about them.

How do we salvage an Asian American identity that has been erased by the media? The novel is one of the great places where that can happen. The more I learned about Woods, the more I saw parallels to my own family: the mixed-race identity, veterans coming through trauma after a war. Tiger Woods became more American to me after the research rather than just being a two-dimensional icon.

You’ve talked about how you’ve studied writing and now you teach it, and how we can admire the dead white men of the canon of American Letters but also build on their legacy.
As a teacher, I get this question a lot: What should we do? Should we cancel everybody? I get the impulse to cancel people because it’s a powerful, sweeping gesture. We can take often racist, often problematic writers off our syllabus and feel that we’ve reclaimed a space for someone else. My concern is that I don’t think that stops Whitman from appearing on the desks of school children for the next hundred years. Rather than elimination, we should focus on being more thorough. Instead of saying “this is the gold standard” we should say, “this work revolutionized American letters in some ways, but there are other places where the thinking fell apart.” Whitman created an incredible poetic line according to the King James Bible in an attempt to preserve the union side by side with Abraham Lincoln. Incredible! Whitman was also racist. We can hold those two truths simultaneously.

I see the canon as a very well-curated list of white folks, but when you take the monoliths down into another sector, you can start to build the next sector for yourself. We can look at the canon as a list of white folks, but then we carry on. It’s a less combative approach. I never saw writing as something I had to fight against. I’m fighting against so much in the world. When it comes to writing—the moment where I have the most agency and the most control—I would like that space to be as collaborative as possible, even with the most difficult subjects and the difficult writers who came before.

That’s also my approach to history, particularly with negotiating the Vietnam War. Because it was a civil war there was a polemic of polarity, but in fact when you look at the actual lived lives on the ground, it was incredibly messy. Some folks fought for whoever was closest. Some folks fought for whoever gave them food. Some folks fought because their fathers did. The political schema never quite fits into the reality of life on the ground in Vietnam. But the classroom and the page is where we can go to be back on the ground. It’s where we can say “Where does this narrative go wrong?”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ocean-vuong-america-has-amnesia-about-tiger-woods-11559662495?mod=WCP_magazine&reflink=brd_obamp_mag

[reader]

From Nikkei Asian Review

Found in translation: Thai literature reaches West

New translators lead contemporary authors out of the global margins

BANGKOK -- For years, the Thailand sections of Bangkok's English-language bookstores have been dominated by a colorful yet shallow mixture of popular and academic history, travel guides, coffee-table cookbooks and expatriate-penned thrillers that amplify the country's less-savory aspects. What they have sorely lacked, in other words, is Thai voices.

Slowly, however, that is changing: From an earthy bildungsroman to an unremittingly lyrical love story, contemporary Thai literature in translation is making its presence felt as never before.

"Bright" and "Arid Dreams," by Duanwad Pimwana, one of Thailand's most acclaimed female authors, were released in English in the U.S. in April. Both were translated by Mui Poopoksakul, a Berlin-based former lawyer who is also behind cult author Prabda Yoon's two English-language short story collections, "The Sad Part Was" and "Moving Parts," which were published by the U.K.'s Tilted Axis Press in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Together with two-time Southeast Asian Writers Award winner Veeraporn Nitiprapha's "The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth," released by Thai publisher River Books in late 2018, these titles have brought the number of translations of Thai novels in the past two years to a grand total of five.

While that figure might seem modest, it qualifies as a milestone for a country that readily gives itself up for foreign consumption in fields such as cuisine, tourism and film but has proved oddly inert in exporting literature.

According to the University of Rochester's Translation Database, which tracks original works of fiction and poetry published in the U.S. in English translation, Japanese literature leads the way, with 363 books since 2008, followed by Chinese, with 254, and Korean, with 141. Even Asia's laggards fared better than Thailand: 18 Indonesian, 12 Hindi and nine Vietnamese books made the list over the same period while Thailand, prior to the release of "Bright" and "Arid Dreams," had none.

"Our main challenge in putting it together was that Thailand lacks good [translators]," said editor Pariyapa Amon-Wanitsan, a cultural officer at Thailand's Ministry of Culture. To overcome this lack, she and her co-founder, British editor James Hatton, came up with the BKKLIT Translation Prize, an award that offers a modest cash prize. "We wanted to dig translators out of the woodwork -- and it worked," Hatton added. "We met a few through the competition that turned out to be really good. Two of them had never even tackled literary works before."

Their discoveries include Thais, such as Noh Anothai and Wichayapat Piromsan, and non-Thais, such as Dylan J. Hartmann, each with their own niche spheres of literary interest.

Together, these releases are introducing English readers to some of the characters and narrative strains that have populated Thai literature in recent years. Inhabiting a heightened tropical realm of the senses, "The Blind Earthworm" is a feverish love story that only Thailand -- and a writer highly attuned to it -- could produce.

By contrast, Duanwad's "Bright," about a young boy whose father has abandoned him in a tenement housing community, strays into raw social realism territory, as do the 13 stark tales of the working class that comprise "Arid Dreams." The Bangkok Literary Review, meanwhile, is steeped in the playful postmodern surrealism that Prabda popularized in the country; its short stories introduce us to shape-shifting ravens and couples who swap lives, among other uncanny characters.

Noh, who won a BKKLIT prize for his translation of Chiranan Phitpreecha's tightly metered poem "Firefly," said one of the biggest challenges "is the way a character's choice of pronoun encodes so much information about how he or she views him or herself in relation to the world, and how little articles can completely change the tone of a passage." And then there are the politics of translation to consider. "You can complicate matters even further," he added, "by considering the relationship of the source text and receiving language, the positionality of the translator relative to the original author, the text's place within a particular canon or tradition, and the ethics of representation."

Chicago-based translator Noh Anothai 

Continues at

https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Arts/Found-in-translation-Thai-literature-reaches-West

 

[DivineMadman]

1 hour ago, reader said:

 

Noh, who won a BKKLIT prize for his translation of Chiranan Phitpreecha's tightly metered poem "Firefly," said one of the biggest challenges "is the way a character's choice of pronoun encodes so much information about how he or she views him or herself in relation to the world, and how little articles can completely change the tone of a passage." And then there are the politics of translation to consider. "You can complicate matters even further," he added, "by considering the relationship of the source text and receiving language, the positionality of the translator relative to the original author, the text's place within a particular canon or tradition, and the ethics of representation."

Chicago-based translator Noh Anothai 

Continues at

https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Arts/Found-in-translation-Thai-literature-reaches-West

 

Here's a nice interview with k. Noh about his translation of Sunthorn Phlu's poems.  Poems from the Buddha's Footprint

[reader]

NOTE -- The Neilson Hays Library is located on Surawong Rd., about a 15-minute walk from Patpong.

The Neilson Hays Library

Tuesday – Sunday, 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM
(closed Monday)

From Khaosod English

Bangkok Literature Fest This Nov.

BANGKOK — Renowned Thai and international authors will gather in Bangkok for public talks to celebrate the 150th anniversary of a historic library in Silom this Nov.

Bookworms are in for a much-needed intellectual and cultural treat when the Neilson Hays Library holds a free literature festival from Nov. 16 to 17 under the theme of “Bridging the World Through Letters.”

25 authors from eight countries will come together to share their thoughts on topics from democracy, disinformation, to LGBT rights.

“Given that books were the genesis of the founding of our library, it seems apt that 150 years later we will be celebrating the power of letters,” president of the library Nalin Vanasin said. “We hope to create a stage for the participating literary luminaries to exchange knowledge and share their experiences, as well as showcase Thai creative arts for international audiences.”

Among the list are big names like Adam Johnson, the American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013 for his North Korea-inspired novel “The Orphan Master’s Son.” Also in attendance will be Qiu Xiaolong, the Chinese English-language poet whose crime-mystery novel “Death of a Red Heroine” earned him the prestigious Anthony Award.

Southeast Asian Writers award (SEA Write) winners from Thailand will also be featured, including novelist Uthis Haemamool, and the poets Duanwad Pimwana and Zakariya Amataya.

The festival will also include a small art and crafts market, workshops, and film screenings from the Documentary Club.

Neilson Hays Library was founded by a group of American and British wives of missionaries in 1869 as a book sharing club. In 1922 it moved to the present neoclassical building, designed by the Italian architect behind Hua Lamphong Railway Station, Mario Tamagno, and has continued to serve local and expat members ever since.

There are more than 17,000 books in the library’s collection, mostly in English.

Event program and presentations

https://web.neilsonhayslibrary.com/literature-festival/

The “Neilson Hays Bangkok Literature Festival” will run from Nov. 16 to 17 at Neilson Hays Library on Surawong Road. Panel discussions will be conducted in Thai and English with translations. Entry is free. The venue is reachable by a 15 minute walk from BTS Chong Nonsi exit No. 4.

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/2019/09/12/read-all-about-it-bangkok-literature-fest-this-nov/

[reader]

The subject of the July 22nd post above, poet and fiction writer Ocean Vuong, 30, is among this year’s MacArthur fellows.

From NY Times

This has been an emotionally intense year for the poet and fiction writer Ocean Vuong.

In June, his first novel, “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” written as a Vietnamese immigrant son’s letter to his illiterate mother, came out to much fanfare. Not long before publication, Mr. Vuong’s own mother learned she had Stage 4 breast cancer.

Then, earlier this month, he was back from his book tour, and looking forward to the steadying routines of teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, when he got a phone call delivering some startling news.

“I had to make sure they had the right person, because you don’t want to cry and then have them say it was a mistake,” he recalled. “But then the tears came.”

Mr. Vuong, 30, is one of 26 people chosen as 2019 fellows of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Known colloquially as the “genius” grant (to the annoyance of the foundation), the fellowship honors “extraordinary originality” and comes with a no-strings-attached grant of $625,000, to be distributed over five years.

Continues at

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/arts/macarthur-foundation-genius-winners.html

[reader]

NOTE -- A tip of the cap to Divine Madman who brought this interview with Ocean Vuong from the Paris Review to my in box. I've singled out some quotes from Vuong but you can read the interview in its entirety at the link below.

Survival as a Creative Force: An Interview with Ocean Vuong

Maybe all of life is an experiment, in some sense. Just because we use words like son and mother does not mean that love and forgiveness are a given. They must be tested, and they must be tested with tools. Language is one of those tools. One question this novel hovers over is how do people who hurt each other find ways to protect themselves while attempting to love and, ultimately, to heal? I think Little Dog learns that to experiment is to innovate—and to innovate is to live in hope. Innovation is the first casualty of cynicism. The characters in this novel test each other because they possess an optimism that outlasts their hurt. And I adore them for that.

-----------------------------------------

I’m lucky to have met some truly kind and generous elders and teachers along the way, many of whom opened doors for me by saying incredible things, often just on the fly.

-----------------------------------------

Continues at

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/06/05/survival-as-a-creative-force-an-interview-with-ocean-vuong/

[anddy]

From the Author of "Very Thai", now his brand new take on Bangkok in "Very Bangkok"

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/arts/2020/03/05/british-authors-very-bangkok-deftly-dissects-thai-capital/

 

 

[DivineMadman]

6 hours ago, anddy said:

From the Author of "Very Thai", now his brand new take on Bangkok in "Very Bangkok"

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/arts/2020/03/05/british-authors-very-bangkok-deftly-dissects-thai-capital/

 

 

The author has been giving talks/book signing events in BKK lately (FCCT, SEA Junction and I am sure others).  I hope he gives more - Very entertaining and informative if you can catch one.