Category: Books

What Is The Invisible? A Conversation with ERIKA KOBAYASHI

I met Erika Kobayashi in Tokyo more than a decade ago. At the time, I knew her as an artist and illustrator. I was immediately impressed with the uniqueness of her drawings. The human characters she draws do not resemble Japanese comic book characters. They are very original in style, which is not easy to…

December 12, 2022
Typography Design for SOI BOOKS at the 2022 Tokyo Art Book Fair

If you like books and art and you happen to be in Tokyo or plan to visit Tokyo this October, you’d surely enjoy the Tokyo Art Book Fair that will take place from Oct 27-30 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT). If you’re also interested in Thailand and Thai culture, then you’d really…

September 29, 2022
Laureate of the 2021 Fukuoka Prize (Arts and Culture)

It is a great honor to be given the 2021 Arts and Culture Fukuoka Prize. I am honestly baffled by this, as I never think of what I do as worthy of any prestigious praise. I am the ninth Thai recipient of the award, and completely amazed to find myself among such distinguished names as…

June 28, 2021
Two New Stories Translated to Japanese

My most recent short stories, เสียงซ้ำ (Same Song) and เพราะออกแบบมาให้ใช้แล้วทิ้ง (Designed To Be Disposable), have been translated to Japanese by Sho Fukutomi. They were published together as one chapbook for the recent Tokyo Virtual Art Book Fair (Nov 16-23, 2020) and sold at the Soi Books stand. If you can read Japanese and are interested…

January 3, 2021
เพราะออกแบบมาให้ใช้แล้วทิ้ง เรื่องสั้นใน a day ISSUE 241

“…ภายในฟองอากาศแห่งภาพมายาและรั้วลวดหนามแห่งโฆษณาชวนเชื่อว่าทุกคนไร้ตัวตนโดยเท่าเทียม. ในค่ายทหารเกณฑ์แห่งนี้, ชายหนุ่มทั้งหมดถูกกีดกันชั่วคราวจากปักเจกปัจจัยที่ทำให้พวกเขาไม่ต้องสังสันทน์ในแวดวงเดียวกัน. ทว่าต่อไปในอนาคต, พวกเขาบางคนอาจจะกลายเป็นคนขับรถของบางคน, และบางคนจะไม่ได้กลับออกไปสู่โลกภายนอกนั้นอีกเลย.”

January 3, 2021
Galveias by José Luís Peixoto in Thai

I was introduced to José Luís Peixoto at a riverside hotel in Bangkok and we spoke over a buffet lunch. (The first personal thing I learned about Peixoto was that he’s crazy for buffets.) There was a mutual connection between us right away, not only because of the obvious facts that we are both writers…

December 28, 2020
Basement Moon Hand-Pulled Screen Print

I designed two covers for my novel Basement Moon (published in 2018), one for the regular edition and one as a jacket for the special, pre-order edition. The good people at the Archivist, the printing studio I’ve worked with many times, took on the task of turning the latter into a hand-pulled screen print edition.…

July 3, 2020
Dissolution of Light, My New Story Published in English

In Dissolution of Light, an ageing television repair man sits idly day after day, but when a surprising face appears in his dusty shop, he reflects on his past, his family, and the distance of his youth.

May 20, 2020
Twenty Years of Probability

In 2000, ความน่าจะเป็น, or Probability, was my second published book. I had been back in Thailand for about three years, had completed my military service (the main reason that brought me back), and had had one story collection published. It was also a story collection, thirteen in all, ten of which were previously printed in…

January 29, 2020
新しい目の旅立ち [New Book in Japan]

My new book to be published in Japan is entitled 新しい目の旅立ち in Japanese, which, I’ve been told, translates as “a journey with new eyes” or “new eyes journey.” It was published in Thai as ตื่นบนเตียงอื่น or “waking up on a different bed.” The book is made up of essays about my research trip on an…

December 18, 2019