In these witty, postmodern stories, Yoon riffs on pop culture, experiments with punctuation, flirts with sci-fi and, in a metafictional twist, mocks his own position as omnipotent author. Highly literary, his narratives offer an oblique reflection of contemporary Bangkok life, exploring the bewildering disjunct and oft-hilarious contradictions of a modernity that is at odds with many traditional Thai ideas on relationships, family, school and work.Credited with having 'brought fresh energy to Thai literature with his distinctive urban voice', Yoon's is the voice of a new generation, responding to his country's recent and rapid urbanisation with fresh, off-beat perspectives and exciting formal innovation. The collection from which the majority of the stories in The Sad Part Was are taken made the young author a household name when it was published in 2002 and won the S.E.A. Writers Award. Two of its stories have been excerpted in Two Lines Journal, and Yoon already has a fan in prominent critic Scott Esposito. One story is currently being made into a feature film.

The Sad Part Was

This English version of the Thai novel Si Phaendin tells the rich and entertaining story of one woman's life both inside and outside the royal palace in Bangkok. Spanning a period of four reigns, from King Chulalongkorn to the reign of his grandson King Ananda, this popular modern classic gives insight into the social and political issues facing Thailand from the 1890s through the turbulent years of World War II.

Four Reigns

In thirteen stories that investigate ordinary and working-class Thailand, characters aspire for more but remain suspended in routine. They bide their time, waiting for an extraordinary event to end their stasis. A politician's wife imagines her life had her husband's accident been fatal, a man on death row requests that a friend clear up a misunderstanding with a sex worker, and an elevator attendant feels himself wasting away while trapped, immobile, at his station all day. With curious wit, this collection offers revelatory insight, subtle critique, and an exploration of class, gender, and disenchantment in a changing country.

Arid Dreams: Stories

A glorious fiction debut written with exceptional acuity by an award-winning twenty-five-year-old Thai-American writer. Read a complete short story at BookBrowse.

Sightseeing is a masterful new work of fiction, a collection of stories set in contemporary Thailand and written with a grace and sophistication that belie the age of its young author. These are generous, tender tales of family bonds, youthful romance, generational conflicts, and cultural shiftings beneath the glossy surface of a warm, Edenic setting. Rattawut Lapcharoensap offers a diverse, humorous, and deeply affectionate view of life in a small Southeast Asian country that is inevitably absorbing the waves of encroaching Westernization.

In the prizewinning opening story, "Farangs," the young son of a modest beachside motel owner commits the cardinal sin of falling for a pretty tourist, and the confrontation that ensues between the native boy and the girl's pompous American boyfriend culminates wondrously amid flying mangoes and Clint Eastwood—a pet pig—swimming out to sea. In "Sightseeing," the much-anticipated holiday of a young man about to leave for college and his loving and fiercely independent mother becomes a different kind of pilgrimage altogether when they are forced to confront the mother's impending blindness. The concluding novella, "Cockfighter," is a triumph of storytelling in which a young girl witnesses her proud father's valiant but foolhardy and drawn-out battle against the local delinquent and violent hoodlum whose family's vicious stranglehold on the villagers has passed down unchecked through generations.

Through his vivid assemblage of parents and children, natives and transients, ardent lovers and sworn enemies, Lapcharoensap dares us to look with new eyes at the circumstances that shape our views and the prejudices that form our blind spots. Gorgeous and lush, painful and candid, Sightseeing is an extraordinary reading experience, one that powerfully reveals that when it comes to how we respond to pain, anger, hurt, and love, no place is too far from home.

Sightseeing

FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF "EAST OF THE SUN", A POWERFUL LOVE STORY SET AGAINST THE UNSTABLE AND EXOTIC CITIES OF CAIRO AND ISTANBUL DURING THE HEIGHT OF WORLD WAR II


At twenty-three, Saba Tarcan knows her only hope of escaping the clamor of Cardiff Bay, Wales, lies in her voice. While traveling Britain, singing for wounded soldiers, Saba meets handsome fighter pilot Dom Benson, recovering from burns after a crash. When Saba auditions to entertain troops in far-off lands, Dom follows her to London. Just as their relationship begins to take root, Saba is sent to sing in Africa, and Dom is assigned a new mission in the Middle East. As Saba explores Cairo’s bazaars, finding friendship among the troupe’s acrobats and dancers, Dom returns to the cockpit once again, both thrilled and terrified to be flying above the desert floor. In spite of great danger, the two resolve to reunite.



When Saba learns that her position makes her uniquely qualified for a secret mission of international importance, she agrees to help the British Secret Service, concealing her role from Dom. Her decision will jeopardize not only her safety but also the love of her life. 



Based on true accounts of female entertainers used as spies during World War II, "Jasmine Nights" is a powerful story of danger, secrets, and love, filled with the colors and sounds of the Middle East’s most beautiful cities.

Jasmine Nights

Regional characteristics and regional language feature prominently in discussions of Thai identity, but there is little mention of regional literatures. In northeastern Thailand's Isan region, authors write primarily in Thai, but it is possible nonetheless to identify an Isan literature, which played a significant and at times pivotal role in the development of Thai literature in the second half of the twentieth century, as authors grappled with how their origins and experiences related to the Thai centre. Martin Platt's account of Isan literature is an important first step toward a broader study of regional literatures in Thailand, and shapes a model that has relevance for examining literary works in other Asian countries.
  
  Martin B. PLATT is Associate Professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen.

Isan Writers, Thai Literature: Writing and Regionalism in Modern Thailand

Pete wanders into a Bangkok go-go bar and meets the love of his life. Joy is young, stunning, and a pole dancer. In a roller-coaster ride of sex, drugs, and deception, Pete discovers that his own very private dancer is not all she claims to be. Far from being the love of his life, Joy is his own personal nightmare!

Private Dancer

Jack Mullen is a driven student of the law. His brother Peter is a servant of the rich, parking the cars of the Hamptons' elite --- and perhaps satisfying their more intimate needs as well. Then Peter's body is found on the beach. Jack knows the drowning was no accident, but someone's unlimited power and money have bought the cops, the judges, the system. Now Jack is learning a lesson in justice he never got in law school ... and his astonishing plan to beat the billionaires will have you reeling --- and cheering --- to the very last page.

The Beach House

Democracy in Thailand was born in Paris, a lofty ideal hatched by a handful of intellectuals. When the People's Party propelled Thailand into a democracy in 1932, most Thai people were not ready for it. They saw it only as a power game that diminished their most revered king and gave carte blanche to bottomless corruption by people in power. The next sixty years saw Thailand going through more than fifteen changes of government, at least tens of them by force. The usually bloodless coups turned bloodbath the last couple of times, with atrocities that made world's headlines.

In the wilderness at the border between Thailand and Laos, two men met and fought a duel as deadly enemies. They both lived to become grudging friends, all the time walking the parallel lines of democracy : one sworn to topple and uproot corrupted governments, the other, while equally disgusted with the abusing of power, was duty bound to uphold their lawful authorities.

Their combined experiences gave us tantalizing behind-the-scene glimpses into all the major rebellions and coups between 1933 and 1992. Win Lyovarin weaved fictional and real characters, fictitious and documented events into a colourful fabric of an historical novel of extraordinary power and perception. 

Democracy, Shaken &amp; Stirred won him the first of his two SEA Write Awards, the top accolade in South East Asia, in 1997. The book has now been included in the recommended reading list for students of Political Science in most universities in Thailand.

Democracy, Shaken & Stirred: A Novel

This volume brings together Siburapha's most highly acclaimed novel, "Behind the Painting", with three short stories highlighting the plight of the underclass: "Those Kind of People," "Lend Us a Hand," and "The Awakening."

"Behind the Painting" is the story of a Thai student studying in Japan who becomes infatuated with an older Thai woman. The novel reflects postwar Thai society in the vanity of the aristocracy and the pragmatism of the new elite; in the social more of concealing one's true feelings; and in the restricted existence of unmarried women and the resulting pressure to marry, whatever the circumstance. Paralleling these Thai cultural themes are the universal themes of the fear of aging and the vagaries of love.

Siburapha (Kulap Saipradit, 1905-1974) has enjoyed a checkered reputation in the Thai literary world. A popular and accomplished writer of romantic novels in the late 1920s, his later work tackled themes of social injustice and inequality. Imprisoned from 1952 to 1957, Siburapha subsequently sought asylum in China, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Behind the Painting: And Other Stories

On the day Chareeya is born, her mother discovers her father having an affair with a traditional Thai dancer. From then on, Chareey's life is fated to carry the weight of her parents' disappointments. She and her sister grow up in a lush riverside town near the Thai capital, Bangkok, captivated by trashy romance novels, classical music and games of make-believe. When the laconic orphan, Pran, enters their world, he unwittingly lures the sisters into a labyrinth of their own making as they each try to escape their intertwined fates.

The original Thai langaue edition of The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth won the prestigious South East Asian Writers ("S.E.A. Write") Award for fiction and was best-seller in Thailand. It is translated into English by Thai film critic and recipient of France's Chevalier dans I'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Kong Rithdee.

Attuned to the addictive rhythms of a Thai soap opera and written with the consuming intensity of a fever dream, this novel opens an insightful and truly compelling window onto the Thai heart.

The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth

You hear that selling sex is degrading; you hear that no one would ever choose to do it; you hear that it's dangerous; that women get abused and killed. You often hear, "There should be a law against it!" Or, perhaps just against the buyers. What do sex workers want? That's not something you hear asked very often. In this accessible manifesto, the strong argument for full decriminalization of sex work is explored through personal experience and looking at laws around the world.

In some places, like New York, selling sex is illegal. In others, like Sweden, only buying it is. In some, like the UK and France, it's legal to sell sex and to buy it, but not to run a brothel or solicit a sale. In New Zealand, it's not illegal at all. In What Do Sex Workers Want?, Juno Mac and Molly Smith - both sex workers - explain what each of these laws do in practice to those doing the work. Addressing each model in turn, they show that prohibiting the sex industry actually exacerbates every harm that sex workers are vulnerable to.

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights

Evocative and incisive, Bangkok Found looks deep within traditional culture to discover how Bangkok is like no other contemporary city. It's the book you read after you've seen the temples and enjoyed the nightlife - and then start to wonder where the mysterious appeal of Bangkok really lies. With wit and a wealth of anecdotes from Kerr's thirty years of experience in Thailand, Bangkok Found, sequel to his award-winning Lost Japan, takes you on a journey to the essential and the quirky, the factual and the mythical. In this series of meditations on the city, old culture meets global fusion in the crossroads that is Bangk

Bangkok Found: Reflections On The City

First appearing in 2005 and quickly selling out, this fully revised edition of Thailand’s Political History continues in the same style as the first but with its scope dramatically widened. While the first edition began with a portrait of late Ayutthayan society, the new edition steps back to the thirteenth century, tackling some of the most topical and pressing historical debates at present. It discusses the development and evolution of the Siamese state from the early Sukhothai period through the fall of Ayutthaya to the rise of the Chakri dynasty in the late eighteenth century and its consolidation of power in the nineteenth. Moving into the twentieth century it traces the emergence of the Thai nation state, the large-scale investments in modern infrastructure and the concomitant economic expansion that have occurred since the 1950s onwards.

A new final chapter brings the reader up-to-date and addresses Thailand’s current political situation spanning the rise and fall of Thaksin Shinawatra to the divisive and at times violent polarisation of Thai society. It traces the emergence of the rival Yellow and Red shirt protest groups, the takeover of Suvarnabhumi International Airport by the PAD and the occupation of Ratchaprasong intersection by the UDD and their eventual violent dispersal by the Thai military.
Often at variance with the more dominant interpretations of nationalistic
history and with a strong reliance upon primary sources, Barend J. Terwiel’s
Thailand’s Political History makes a refreshing assessment of past events possible.

Thailand's Political History: From the 13th century to recent times

The plot follows the exploits of a king and his family, whose sister was kidnapped by a flying multi-headed nyak during his youth.

ສັງສິນໄຊ (Sang Sinxay)

คดีประวัติศาสตร์: คําพิพากษาศาลฎีกาคดี ลอบปลงพระชนม์ ร. ๘ [Khadī prawattisāt : khamphiphāksā sāndīkā khadī lō̧p plong phrachon Rō̧. 8]

"Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher" "Lonely Planet Bangkok" is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Eat pat tai and other street food at open-air markets, visit breathtaking temples or shop 'til you drop at the MBK Center and Chatuchak Weekend Market; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Bangkok and begin your journey now! Inside "Lonely Planet Bangkok":    Full-colour maps and images throughout   Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests   Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots   Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices   Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss   Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - history, people, culture, eating in Thailand, the sex industry in Thailand   Free, convenient pull-out Bangkok map (included in print version), plus over 35 colour maps   Covers Siam Square, Pratunam, Ploenchit, Ratchathewi, Riverside, Silom, Lumphini, Sukhumvit, Thewet, Dusit, Banglamphu, Ko Ratanakosin, Thonburi, Chinatown, Greater Bangkok and more   eBook Features: (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones)    Downloadable PDF and offline maps prevent roaming and data charges   Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews   Add notes to personalise your guidebook experience   Seamlessly flip between pages   Bookmarks and speedy search capabilities get you to key pages in a flash   Embedded links to recommendations' websites   Zoom-in maps and images   Inbuilt dictionary for quick referencing   The Perfect Choice: "Lonely Planet Bangkok," our most comprehensive guide to Bangkok, is perfect for both exploring top sights and taking roads less travelled.    Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out "Lonely Planet Thailand" for a comprehensive look at all the country has to offer.   Looking for just the highlights of Bangkok? Check out "Pocket Bangkok," a handy-sized guide focused on the can't-miss sights for a quick trip.   Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet. About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. 

Lonely Planet Bangkok (Travel Guide)

A PASSIONATE, AFFECTIONATE RECORD OF ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES IN THE WORLD’S HOTTEST METROPOLIS 

Tourists come to Bangkok for many reasons—a sex change operation, a night with two prostitutes dressed as nuns, a stay in a luxury hotel. Lawrence Osborne comes for the cheap dentistry. Broke (but no longer in pain), he finds that he can live in Bangkok on a few dollars a day. And so the restless exile stays. 

Osborne’s is a visceral experience of Bangkok, whether he’s wandering the canals that fill the old city; dining at the No Hands Restaurant, where his waitress feeds him like a baby; or launching his own notably unsuccessful career as a gigolo. A guide without inhibitions, Osborne takes us to a feverish place where a strange blend of ancient Buddhist practice and new sexual mores has created a version of modernity only superficially indebted to the West. "Bangkok Days "is a love letter to the city that revived Osborne’s faith in adventure and the world.

Bangkok Days

"The Fault in Our Stars" meets "Eleanor and Park" in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning!
 
Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.
 
Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.
 
When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.
 
This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.

All the Bright Places

In the colorful tradition of Hemingway's "A Movable Feast", Jerry Hopkins recalls his first decade as a Bangkok expatriate by profiling 25 of the city's most unforgettable characters. Among them are the man thought to be the model for Colonel Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now," an advertising executive who photographs Thai bargirls for "Playboy," an Oscar-winning screenwriter who moved there to die, a Catholic priest who has lived and worked in the Bangkok slums for 35 years, a circus dwarf turned computer programmer turned restaurateur, three Vietnam war helicopter pilots who opened a go-go bar, a pianist at one of the world's best hotels who ended up on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, a detective who tracks runaways who fake their deaths and a documentary filmmaker who lives with elephants. All of them "escaped" to Thailand to reinvent themselves and live out their fantasies in one of the world's most notorious cities.

Bangkok Babylon: The Real-Life Exploits of Bangkok's Legendary Expatriates are often Stranger than Fiction

A daring, spellbinding tale of anthropologists, missionaries, demon possession, sexual taboos, murder, and an obsessed young reporter named Mischa Berlinski.

When his girlfriend takes a job as a schoolteacher in northern Thailand, Mischa Berlinski goes along for the ride, working as little as possible for one of Thailand’s English-language newspapers. One evening a fellow expatriate tips him off to a story. A charismatic American anthropologist, Martiya van der Leun, has been found dead—a suicide—in the Thai prison where she was serving a fifty-year sentence for murder. 

Motivated first by simple curiosity, then by deeper and more mysterious feelings, Mischa searches relentlessly to discover the details of Martiya’s crime. His search leads him to the origins of modern anthropology—and into the family history of Martiya’s victim, a brilliant young missionary whose grandparents left Oklahoma to preach the Word in the 1920s and never went back. Finally, Mischa’s obsession takes him into the world of the Thai hill tribes, whose way of life becomes a battleground for two competing, and utterly American, ways of looking at the world. 

Vivid, passionate, funny, deeply researched, and page-turningly plotted, Fieldwork is a novel about fascination and taboo—scientific, religious, and sexual. It announces an assured and captivating new voice in American fiction.

Fieldwork

Thailand's pristine Ko Phi Phi island attracts tourists from around the world. There, struggling to make ends meet, small-resort owners Lek and Sarai are happy to give an American named Patch room and board in exchange for his help. But when Patch's brother, Ryan, arrives, accompanied by his girlfriend, Brooke, Lek learns that Patch is running from the law, and his presence puts Lek's family at risk. Meanwhile, Brooke begins to doubt her love for Ryan while her feelings for Patch blossom.In a landscape where nature's bounty seems endless, these two families are swept up in an approaching cataclysm that will require all their strength of heart and soul to survive...

Cross Currents

To achieve the present selection, Thai Modern Classics asked ten Thai literary critics, professors of literature and writers to each establish a list of their favourite novels, of whatever length, genre or period.

The 20 best novels of thailand: An anthology (THAI MODERN CLASSICS)

Anna Leonowens, a proper Englishwoman, was an unlikley candidate to change the course of Siamese (Thai) history. A young widow and mother, her services were engaged in the 1860's by King Mongkut of Siam to help him communicate with foreign governments and be the tutor to his children and favored concubines. Stepping off the steamer from London, Anna found herself in an exotic land she could have only dreamed of lush landscape of mystic faiths and curious people, and king's palace bustling with royal pageantry, ancient custom, and harems. One of her pupils, the young prince Chulalongkorn, was particularly influenced by Leonowens and her Western ideals. He learned about Abraham Lincoln and the tenets of democracy from her, and years later he would become Siam's most progressive king. He guided the country's transformation from a feudal state to a modern society, abolshing slavery and making many other radical reforms.

Weaving meticulously researched facts with beautifully imagined scenes, Margret Landon recreates an unforgettable portrait of life in a forgotten extotic land. Written more than fifty years ago, and translated into dozens of languages," Anna and the King of Siam "(the inspiration for the magical play and film "The King and I")continues to delight and enchant readers around the world.

Anna and the King of Siam

1942: Boldly advancing through Asia, the Japanese need a train route from Burma going north. In a prison camp, British POWs are forced into labor. The bridge they build will become a symbol of service and survival to one prisoner, Colonel Nicholson, a proud perfectionist. Pitted against the warden, Colonel Saito, Nicholson will nevertheless, out of a distorted sense of duty, aid his enemy. While on the outside, as the Allies race to destroy the bridge, Nicholson must decide which will be the first casualty: his patriotism or his pride.

Thailand

The Sad Part Was

Prabda Yoon

Four Reigns

Kukrit Pramoj

Arid Dreams: Stories

Duanwad Pimwana

Sightseeing

Rattawut Lapcharoensap

Jasmine Nights

Julia Gregson

Isan Writers, Thai Literature: Writing and Regionalism in Modern Thailand

Martin Platt

Private Dancer

Stephen Leather

The Beach House

James Patterson

Democracy, Shaken & Stirred: A Novel

Win Lyovarin

Behind the Painting: And Other Stories

Siburapha

The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth

Veeraporn Nitiprapha

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights

Molly Smith

Bangkok Found: Reflections On The City

Alex Kerr

Thailand's Political History: From the 13th century to recent times

B.J. Terwiel

ສັງສິນໄຊ (Sang Sinxay)

Pang Kham

คดีประวัติศาสตร์: คําพิพากษาศาลฎีกาคดี ลอบปลงพระชนม์ ร. ๘ [Khadī prawattisāt : khamphiphāksā sāndīkā khadī lō̧p plong phrachon Rō̧. 8]

Bunrūam Thīamčhan

Lonely Planet Bangkok (Travel Guide)

Lonely Planet

Bangkok Days

Lawrence Osborne

All the Bright Places

Jennifer Niven

Bangkok Babylon: The Real-Life Exploits of Bangkok's Legendary Expatriates are often Stranger than Fiction

Jerry Hopkins

Fieldwork

Mischa Berlinski

Cross Currents

John Shors

The 20 best novels of thailand: An anthology (THAI MODERN CLASSICS)

Marcel Barang

Anna and the King of Siam

Margaret Landon

The Bridge Over the River Kwai

Pierre Boulle