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Isan Writers, Thai Literature

Author: Martin B. Platt

Publisher: NUS Press

Published: 2013-08-20

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9971696975

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.

Monsoon Country

Author: Pira Sudham

Publisher: Proglen Trading Co., Ltd.

Published: 2022-09-19

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 6164560446

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Pira Sudham's 1988 classic Monsoon Country NEW 2022 EDITION It is hard to overstate the impact that Pira's Monsoon Country had on the outside world when it was first published in 1988. Regarded as a classic by many, yet is was classic in a genre of just one novel. Pira Sudham and Monsoon Country are close to unique in so many ways. He wrote in the English and never published novels or short stories in his native Thai language. A justifiable comparison could be made to Joseph Conrad writing almost a century before. He came from a peasant family in the northeast, the country's poorest region where a third of Thailand's population live. With Monsoon Country there was suddenly an international voice for the peasants, long exploited by both governments and provincial godfathers. The story tracks Pira's own life, a poor youngster taken to Bangkok as a temple boy and winning scholarships to end up studying English in Thailand's leading university followed by overseas universities in New Zealand, Australia and England. Many kids born in this century, growing up in NE Thailand wouldn't recognize the 1960s and 1970s region called Isan. (Sometimes Esarn, Issan, Isaan and other spellings.) Their grandparents would know the life lived in poverty well. Young girls moving to Bangkok to work in its notorious nightlife industry in order to support their parents and siblings. Development has taken place. The inequality and local godfathers may still be there, but now politicians and army generals have to remember the insurgency of the 60s and 70s and at least pay lip service to improving the living standards in Thailand's largest region. Maybe, again like Conrad, English being a second language forces authors to be meticulous in their use of the language and finding the exact right words and phrases to use. If you have never read Monsoon Country, or last read it back when it was first published, now is a good time to read it for the first or second time to see why it was so widely praised back then. Pira is still with us and living back in his home village. The sequel to Monsoon Country, 2002's The Force of Karma has a new final chapter written in 2022 bringing the story up-to-date. There are good reasons why Pira Sudham is regarded internationally as the leading Thai author of his generation. "With his rich command of the English language Pira Sudham possesses the unique gift of being able to convey the cultural evolution of Thailand through the eyes of a poor farmer’s son. Pira’s insightful observations make fascinating reading and the lad who once tended buffaloes has become a significant voice for the people of the Northeast." Roger Crutchley, Bangkok Post columnist and author of The Road to Nakhon Nowhere

Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations

Author: James B. Minahan

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2016-08-01

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13:

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This book addresses the numerous national movements of ethnic groups around the world seeking independence, more self-rule, or autonomy—movements that have proliferated exponentially in the 21st century. In the last 15 years, globalization, religious radicalization, economic changes, endangered cultures and languages, cultural suppression, racial tensions, and many other factors have stimulated the emergence of autonomy and independence movements in every corner of the world—even in areas formerly considered immune to self-government demands such as South America. Researching the numerous ethnic groups seeking autonomy or independence worldwide previously required referencing many specialized publications. This book makes this difficult-to-find information available in a single volume, presented in a simple format accessible to everyone, from high school readers to scholars in advanced studies programs. The book provides an extensive update to Greenwood's Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups around the World that was published more than a decade earlier. Each ethnic group receives an alphabetically organized entry containing information such as alternate names, population figures, flag or flags, geography, history, culture, and languages. All the information readers need to understand the motivating factors behind each movement and the current situation of each ethnic group is presented in a compact summary. Fact boxes at the beginning of each entry enable students to quickly access key information, and consistent entry structure makes for easy cross-cultural comparisons.

Bangkok Bound

Author: Ellen Boccuzzi

Publisher: Silkworm Books

Published: 2012-12-01

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 162840566X

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With the acceleration of global migration, literature by migrant writers has emerged as a powerful medium for describing the ways in which global forces are experienced at the personal level. Migrant literature offers a compelling counter‐narrative to abstract visions of globalization, grounding large‐scale processes in real‐life stories of individuals. In Thailand, migrant writers have documented the social and cultural impacts of fifty years of rural‐urban migration through hundreds of stories, poems, and novels. Bangkok Bound is the first book to examine this body of literature and the messages that Thai migrant writers convey about their experiences. These stories powerfully describe the ways in which migrants who leave their homes bound for Bangkok are quickly bound to Bangkok through the transformative force of modern city life. And they show the ways in which those who remain behind in the village are transformed, too, as they struggle to maintain a rural way of life in a rapidly urbanizing world. Bangkok Bound will be of interest to anyone working on migration or urbanization, as well as to scholars of Thailand and Thai literature. Specialists in migration will find it a welcome addition to the growing field of migration studies through examination of narrative fiction. What others are saying “This is an engaging and authoritative study of literary representations of migration from the provinces to Bangkok based on wide reading of short stories written over the last four decades and interviews with major writers and critics. It will be of interest not only to students of literature, but also to anyone interested in social change in Thailand in the late twentieth century and the way that it has been perceived and recorded by local writers.” —David Smyth, SOAS, University of London Highlights - Useful for an introductory course on Thai or Southeast Asian studies; offers a springboard for conversations on development, rural‐urban inequality, migration, and the impacts of rapid urbanization in Asia - First book to examine the theme of migration in Thai literature, a significant contemporary genre - Contributes to the growing field of migration studies through examination of narrative fiction - Provides a window into how migration and urbanization are experienced at the personal level of interest to migration scholars as well as scholars of Thailand, Thai cultural studies, and Thai literature

Historical Dictionary of Thailand

Author: Gerald W. Fry

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2025-01-07

Total Pages: 841

ISBN-13: 1538157446

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Throughout its history Siam and then later Thailand has shown remarkable resiliency, adaptability, and creativity in responding to serious threats and crises. This augurs well for Thailand’s capacity to deal with the serious problems described above and to flourish in the areas in which it has great potential and comparative advantage, such as food exports (“kitchen of the world”); diverse genres of tourism; health and wellness management; creative design; alternative energy sources (great potential of solar energy and e-vehicles); regional transportation hub (both rail and air); export growth and diversification; an attractive site for MICE; and as an international education hub. Thailand clearly has the potential to become one of the most distinct, vibrant, creative, and diverse societies of the dynamic Asia-Pacific region. Historical Dictionary of Thailand, Fourth Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1,000 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country’s politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Thailand.

Teardrops of Time

Author: Arnika Fuhrmann

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2020-12-01

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 143848075X

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Focusing on one of the most significant poets of the twentieth century, Angkarn Kallayanapong (1926–2012), this book makes a unique contribution to understandings of non-Western literary modernity. Arnika Fuhrmann investigates how the Thai poet adapts Buddhist understandings of time to create a modern Asian aesthetic imaginary. While Angkarn's poetry conjures the image of an early modern Thai cosmopolitanism, it also pioneers a poetics reflective of present-day globalization. The result is an experiment in Buddhist cosmopolitan aesthetic modernity. Teardrops of Time contextualizes the poet's work in the literary history and cultural politics of his time, tracing the transformation of a modern Thai cultural and political imaginary through the political history of the country's authoritarian governance since the late 1950s and the exigencies of an increasingly globalized economy since the 1980s. As Angkarn's work aligns itself with contemporaneous global trends in poetry, the book reads it alongside the work of Paul Celan and Allen Ginsberg.

Citizen Designs

Author: Eli Elinoff

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2021-12-31

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 082488826X

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What does it mean to design democratic cities and democratic citizens in a time of mass urbanization and volatile political transformation? Citizen Designs: City-Making and Democracy in Northeastern Thailand addresses this question by exploring the ways that democratic urban planning projects intersect with emerging political aspirations among squatters living in the northeastern Thai city of Khon Kaen. Based on ethnographic and historical research conducted since 2007, Citizen Designs describes how residents of Khon Kaen’s railway squatter communities used Thailand’s experiment in participatory urban planning as a means of reimagining their citizenship, remaking their communities, and acting upon their aspirations for political equality and the good life. It also shows how the Thai state used participatory planning and design to manage both situated political claims and emerging politics. Through ethnographic analysis of contentious collaborations between residents, urban activists, state planners, participatory architects, and city officials, Eli Elinoff’s analysis reveals how the Khon Kaen’s railway settlements became sites of contestation over political inclusion and the meaning and value of democracy as a political form in the first decades of the twenty-first century. Elinoff examines how as residents embraced politics to enact their equality, they inspired new debates about what good citizenship might mean and how democracy might look and feel. The disagreements over citizenship, like those Elinoff describes in Khon Kaen, reflect the kinds of aspirations for political equality that have been fundamental to Thailand’s political transformation over the last two decades, which has seen new political actors asserting themselves at the ballot box and in the streets alongside the retrenchment of military authoritarianism. Citizen Designs offers new conceptual and empirical insights into the lived effects of Thailand’s political volatility and into the current moment of democratic ambivalence, mass urbanization, and authoritarian resurgence.

Translational Politics in Southeast Asian Literatures

Author: Grace V. S. Chin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-03-15

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1000363325

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Highlighting the interconnections between Southeast Asia and the world through literature, this book calls for a different reading approach to the literatures of Southeast Asia by using translation as the main conceptual framework in the analyses and interpretation of the texts, languages, and cultures of the following countries: Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, and the Philippines. Through the theme of “translational politics,” the contributors critically examine not only the linguistic properties but also the metaphoric, symbolic, and semiotic meanings, images, and representations that have been translated across societies and cultures through local and global consumption and circulation of literature, (new) media, and other cultural forms. Using translation to unlock and decode multiple, different languages, narratives, histories, and worldviews emerging from Southeast Asian geo-literary contexts, this book builds on current scholarship and offers new approaches to the contestations of race, gender, and sexuality in literature, which often involve the politically charged discourses of identity, language, and representation. At the same time, this book provides new perspectives and future directions in the study of Southeast Asian literatures. Exploring a range of literary and cultural products, including written texts, performance, and cinema, this volume will be a key resource for students and researchers interested in translation and cultural studies, comparative and world literature, and Southeast Asian studies.

Ghost Movies in Southeast Asia and Beyond

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-08-09

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 9004323643

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Ghost Movies in Southeast Asia and Beyond explores ghost movies, one of the most popular film genres in East and Southeast Asia, by focusing on movie narratives, the cultural contexts of their origins and audience reception. In the middle of the Asian crisis of the late 1990s, ghost movies became major box office hits. The emergence of the phenomenally popular “J-Horror” genre inspired similar ghost movie productions in Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore. Ghost movies are embedded and reflected in national as well as transnational cultures and politics, in narrative traditions, in the social worlds of the audience, and in the perceptual experience of each individual. They reflect upon the identity crises and traumas of the living as well as of the dead, and they unfold affection and attraction in the border zone between amusement and thrill, secular and religious worldviews. This makes the genre interesting not only for sociologists, anthropologists, media and film scholars, but also for scholars of religion.