Asian literature

The Undone Years

by Shamini Flint

Against a backdrop of the fall of Singapore, the communist insurgency and the eventual Japanese surrender, THE UNDONE YEARS is a very human story of love and betrayal in a time of war.

Rart Eikkatheit's three worlds

by Win Lyovarin

Soldier, pimp or artist? 

What is Rart’s real nature? 

Is history repeating itself?

By the most inventive and versatile of Thai short story writers, 

a tale of social upheavals and human ambiguities 

that...

Behind the picture

by Seeboorapha

A 1930s Thai romance with a Japanese setting

and a political message

by one of the best stylists of Siam

The murder case of Tok Imam Storpa Karde

by Siriworn Kaewkan

Who killed the old imam, and why? 

Your guess is as good as theirs.  

The novel every Thai, 

everyone concerned with 

the situation in Thailand’s deep South, 

should read. If only to ponder 

on the country's...

A scattered world

by Siriworn Kaewkan

When some men are cursed with immortality, 

they endeavour to break the curse 

and, if successful, turn into sea animals.

A novel of magical realism and verbal magic 

set on the fault line of Islam and Buddhism...

Khoak Phranang

by Wimon Sainimnuan

 What happens to common country folk 

when they are caught in the jaws 

of wayward religion and superstition?

This is what happens, at Khoak Phranang, 

the epicentre of rural Thailand in the 1990s.

A short,...

Venom

by Saneh Sangsuk

 A crippled boy plays with his puppets and dreams of glory

until the female cobra he disturbs by his show rushes at him.

The life-and-death struggle that follows has but a predictable end

– or has it?

This...

Of time and tide

by ATSIRI THAMMACHOAT

Little people, simple lives, modest dreams,

traditional beliefs, petty fights, tragic accidents, 

and the dictates of the authorities: 

how fishermen alienate themselves from nature 

and lose their moorings...

The path of the tiger

by SILA KOMCHAI

 Deep into the jungle, 

a young would-be hunter

goes after a barking deer

until he is stalked by a tiger

– and, through the confrontation,

finds himself.

This powerful novella,

written in the late 1980s

after years...

An elephant named Maliwan

by THANORM MAHA-PAORAYA

This gem of a novel, written during the Second World War, 

is an amazingly realistic tale of sacrifice in the name of love, 

at once humorous and tragic: 

a must-read for both teenagers and grown-ups