Novel
A Child of the Northeast
ลูกอีสาน
Kampoon Boontawee · 1976
Synopsis
In a village of Isan, in north-eastern Thailand, in the 1930s, the novel follows for a year Koon, an eight-year-old boy, and his farming family, whose parents are never named. A severe drought afflicts the village; the family joins a caravan that sets off to fish on the Chi river, and the narrative records day by day the food, the trade and the shared life of the Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese villagers.
Context
Published first as a serial in 1975 in Fa Muang Thai, then in volume form in 1976, the year it was named the best Thai novel, the book earned its author the S.E.A. Write Award in 1979. Vichit Kounavudhi adapted it for the cinema in 1982, in a documentary style, and Susan Fulop Kepner translated it into English; Gérard Fouquet's French translation appeared from Fayard in 1991. John C. Ryan reads in it in 2016 a literary ethnobotany, a memory of the traditional uses of plants.
Who it is for
For living, at a child's height, the daily life of the peasants of Isan, in a novel nourished by childhood memories.
Prizes and reception
Thai academics included it among the hundred good books that every Thai should read.
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