Backlist books: Four Reigns by Kukrit Pramoj

Backlist books is a column by Lucy Day Werts that focuses on enduring, important works from or about Asia.

This post is about Four Reigns, a nostalgic historical novel set in Thailand that tells the decades-long story of a Thai woman living under the reign of a series of four kings in the period from 1882 to 1946. Trained as a girl in the palace as a royal attendant, she experiences the ups and downs of daily life and the changing of the times from a privileged point of view. Even-keeled to a fault, she tries to hold her family together, though they have different roles to play in a changing society and thus do not always see eye to eye.

This 663-page novel, originally written as a series of newspaper columns by an Oxford-educated Thai writer and statesman, was published in book form in 1953 and translated into English in 1981.  As well as idealising the national pride of the Thai people and their reverence for Thai royalty, the novel illustrates a kind of Buddhist fatalism or detachment from material things and circumstances beyond one’s control.

See below to find out what you need to know to decide whether you should read Four Reigns, or what you should know about it even if you never do!

FORDEC by Chantal Jauvin

As announced in February, the winner of the Asian Books Blog Book of the Lunar Year in the Year of the Ram / Goat, was The Boy with a Bamboo Heart, by Dr. Amporn Wathanavongs with Chantal Jauvin, published by Maverick House (Ireland). The book is an account of Dr. Amporn’s life.  He is today one of Thailand's most generous benefactors – but he didn’t have an easy start to life.

Book of the Lunar Year: The Boy with a Bamboo Heart

All the votes are now counted, and the winner of the Asian Books Blog Book of the Lunar Year in the Year of the Ram / Goat, now drawing to a close, is The Boy with a Bamboo Heart, by Dr. Amporn Wathanavongs with Chantal Jauvin, published by Maverick House (Ireland). Click here to see the blog’s coverage of the book, last October.

Q & A: Chantal Jauvin

Chantal Jauvin co-authored, with Dr. Amporn Wathanavongs, The Boy with A Bamboo Heart, an account of Dr. Amporn’s life.

Dr. Amporn, the founder of the Foundation for Rehabilitation and Development of Children and Family (FORDEC), is today one of Thailand's most generous benefactors – but he didn’t have an easy start to life. Orphaned at six, he scrambled for survival in the markets of Surin.  At fifteen, he became a boy soldier, trekking through the Cambodian jungle. His tumultuous experiences left him prone to self-loathing, but through learning to accept the kindness of others he surmounted his self-destructive tendencies. After a spell as a Buddhist monk, he was able to follow his true vocation, and, eventually, to save the lives of over 50,000 street children.

Book of the Lunar Year: Bamboo Heart

The winner of the inaugural Asian Books Blog Book of the Lunar Year, in the Year of the Horse, is Bamboo Heart, by Ann Bennett, with 34% of votes cast.  

Congratulations Ann!!!  

Blog readers have said some lovely things about Bamboo Heart. Full analysis of the results, and comments from voters, will follow tomorrow.

Bangkok Women’s Writers Group

Bangkok Women’s Writers Group (BWWG) have just published their second anthology of short fiction, Monsoon Midnights. Raelee Chapman spoke to the group’s organiser, Anette Pollner

Anette arrived in Bangkok in 2003 on a round-the-world ticket.  At the time, she was writing a novel.  When she left two years later, she was writing a different novel; since she returned in 2006 she has finished five more, and has seen most of them published in the UK and the US.  She also writes short stories and articles. Furthermore, she created a successful series of unconventional creative writing workshops, Writing from the Unconscious Mind; she has just launched a new series of workshops, Creative Writing for Startups.

Could you tell me a bit about Monsoon Midnights?

The anthology contains 18 short stories which previously appeared as part of a monthly series in The Big Chilli, a local English-language magazine. The stories explore strange and wonderful locations in Bangkok, all set at night, under the monsoon moon.  They are connected by short segments written by me. Each story is illustrated by artwork from Thai artists, and we included a map of Bangkok, to show where each story is set.