Novel
Monsoon Country
Pira Sudham · 1988
Synopsis
Prem grows up in a poor and remote village in Isan, in north-eastern Thailand. A teacher notices his gifts and sends him to serve a monk in Bangkok; a scholarship then allows him to study English language and literature abroad, and takes him as far as European high society. The novel, which closely follows the author's life from 1954 to 1980, shows him torn between Thai and Western values, at the time of the student movements of the 1970s.
Context
Published in 1988 in Bangkok by Shire Asia Publishers, and written in the United Kingdom, the novel went through several editions; it opens a sequence continued by The Force of Karma in 2002, then recast as Shadowed Country. Mark Major studies in 2012 the development of its characters, Prem, Kiang and Dani, from one version to the next. The narrative takes in the social and political changes of the country, up to the repression of the student demonstrations of 1973 and 1976.
Who it is for
For hearing the voice of the peasants of Isan, carried in English by one of their own, who became a writer far from his country.
Prizes and reception
A reviewer on Meandering Tales found it in 2021 moving and essential, despite conversations left hanging.
Sources for this page 4
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