Thread: Best Thai Reading ?

Mad Dogs and Co. by Chart Korbjiti originally written in Thai and translated into English. I read the English version and enjoyed it thoroughly, still looking for the Thai version without success.

Any poetry by self-professed "Thailand poet" Tom Radzienda- it serves as a very useful reminder in gauging how far I am from completely loosing my bottle as an expat.If I think it is putrid, I'm alright; however, If I start thingking that it is good, I know it's time to un-hitch the gate on the ferry's stern.

So, feeling glum, chum? Bar girlfriend walked out with all yer dosh? Been fired and beaten up by your employer?

Take heart, it could be much, much worse. for example, a "poem" by our friend Tom R.:

The Tide of the Poem

John Coltrane, Tenor Sax

You are Poetry

Sculptor

Canvas of the Poem

Artist on the Mekong

After the Wasteland

The Defiance of Poetry

Let Poetry be the Universe

Rhapsody

Preludes to Chopin

If Poetry Stuck to the Ribs

Natural Rights as a Poem

A Poet Seeks Forgiveness

The Poet Trees

Poetry Lovers

Scattering Winds of Poetry

Doesn’t Fire Dream of Jazz?

The Womb of Creation

The Echo of Poetry in Hollow Vaults

Creation is the Intersection of Observation and Philosophy

Theme is the opposable Thumb to Crafty Form

Wondering into Thai Culture by Mont Redmond is an ecletic collection of non-ficition essays on all things Thai. Each essay is cryptically lean, at times reading like a riddle. It's quite the inspiration for any aspiring independent scholars out there...and that's where Mont is: out there. Enjoy.

Comes across as Thai-bashing though.

Do you think it is mate, or do you think that's how it may be perceived?

Well I didn't really enjoy the rather negative tone of the book, however the bloke that lent me his said that it was the best thing that he'd ever read and that he used it like a survival guide.

Cheers, I'll have to hunt down a copy. A book that gets such polarised reactions must at least be interesting.

If you can wait until November I'll post you the copy that I have. The bloke that lent it to me left in rather a hurry and forgot to give me back my Ben Elton book so I kept his. It's definitely worth a read, but it's not my taste.

If you can wait until November I'll post you the copy that I have.

Christ, are the posties on strike for that long?

Thanks for the offer though mate, if I don't find a copy before then I'll let you know. :chug:

Thai Short Stories & Poems

Edited By Nitaya Masavisut and Mathew Grose
.................................................. ................

It has lots of stories that come from an interesting perspective.

My favorite story in the book is, "Nightfall on the Waterway," by Ussiri Thammachot.

The poems lack depth in English, but are probably very good in Thai.

The stories and poems won the "S.E.A. Write Award"

Wondering into Thai Culture by Mont Redmond i

yeah, this is a really good one. not easy stuff, as you said cryptic but profound. nice bob av by the way antithesis!


pira sudham is good for fictional/non-fictional tales of poor isarn folk and their lives. it's nice stuff; sometimes sad, sometimes funny, sometimes mystical as he explores some of the animistic/pagan beliefes still present in isarn, brutal as he writes of environmental activists being brutalised and murdered.

"Born in an Isan Village, Burirum Province, the northeastern region of Thailand, Pira Canning Sudham went through a feudal education based on rote learning and authoritative teaching in the village primary school and in a state high school in Bangkok. While in the second year at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, he won a New Zealand government scholarship to study English Literature at Victoria University. Having chosen to write in English, he continued to read English literature in Australia and later in England where he wrote poems, short stories and Monsoon Country, the first book of Shadowed Country.

His writings stem partly from defiance for having lived a suppressed life in the 1960’s-1970’s under despotic regimes and partly from a driving force, having first-hand experiences of dire needs and social injustice in Thailand.

Now he leads a solitary life in his home village where he sets up funds to provide scholarships to needy students and teaches impoverished children in and around the District of Napo at a private school he built in 1997.

Widely read and highly acclaimed, Pira Canning Sudham’s literary works have become a powerful voice of the powerless."

from - http://www.pirasudham.com/background.shtml