Languages

In this short story by Thai novelist Duanwad Pimwana, a man searches for hope and companionship in a world of trash.   My mother and father disappeared amid the trash. My siblings and relatives, too, one by one. I have nobody. Trash is everywhere around me: the ground, the hollows, the hills are all trash. It doesn’t matter where I look, or how far, I see nothing but an unending series of overlapping mountains, trash upon trash. Trees have been flattened, homes have collapsed,...

Thailand’s Prabda Yoon, who made his WWB debut in our October 2017 issue, returns with the tale of a transgender woman at the end of her rope.    He picked up the nickname ’Mantique from his friends during his time at university. Because among the guys in his class—all rather busted-looking—he was hailed as the most romantic. Because he already had the nickname Man.   Because he didn’t like the nickname his father had given him and...

Duanwad Pimwana’s battling couple abandon their boy to the neighborhood. Duanwad Pimwana reads “Monopoly” in Thai. Kampol Changsamran, a boy of five, was hanging around in front of Mrs. Tongjan’s tenement houses. His father had told him to wait: “You stay here. I’m taking your brother to Grandma’s. I’ll be back to get you in a bit.” Hearing these last three words, Kampol didn’t dare to wander far, worried his father...

Win Lyovarin​’s exasperated working man offers a mordant vocabulary lesson for urbanites. Alarm Clock: a tool invented by humans for self-enslavement. The sound of metal striking metal five times rushes out of a little alley through the darkness toward my ear at a speed of 1100 feet per second, as loud as the false crowing of the rooster-shaped alarm clock that jerks me from the land of dreams, dreams ruthlessly broken into bits and scraps and scattered about—with...

Phu Kradat gives voice to the people of rural Isan.  Mon thru Fri, Sat and Sun, no holds barred flea markets run from morning to morning open up their thing hustling bustles on Crown Property peddling motley commodities cheap consumer stuff foodstuff dried stuff fresh stuff live stuff dead stuff tangibles intangibles Wow, countless all whatevers to buy, sell, exchange! come in at your convenience, just shuffle on in they shuffle on in hesitating I hug my possibles bag grope for...

Veteran editor Suchart Sawasdsri made a name for himself as a literary talent spotter on whose desk the manuscripts of many of Thailand’s acclaimed contemporary writers have landed. Over his nearly fifty-year career as editor of various literary magazines as well as a journal of social and political commentary, he has come to be regarded as an encyclopedia of Thai literature. Most notably, from 1978 to 2010 (with a couple of hiatuses, dividing the magazine’s run into three...

Uthis Haemamool’s amnesiac temple worker recognizes the false side of true belief.  Before the Memory Shake-up Before his memory was shaken up, if you were to look inside that brainpan of his for something special, something different from what was in other people’s brains, his only unique memories would be the personal ones: deep, intimate memories of people close to him, and of relatives, but distant and unreliable when it came to people in general. You’d say that...

Prabda Yoon’s sage passes judgment from a park bench.  I don’t have all that much to be proud of, but one memory that still makes me smile to this day is Ei Ploang calling me a good person. I used to address him more politely as Khun Ploang; the audacious switch to Ei is only a recent development, and one I never would have had the nerve to make without the express permission of the man himself. One morning in Lumpini Park, Ei Ploang handed me a scrap of paper....

Sri Daoruang’s heartsick mother treasures her sickly son. When a young child eats very little, and fails to gain weight over several months, its parents will search avidly for ways to correct the situation. Should the child then begin to eat well, to sleep well, to grow by day and by night, the parents will be happy, and their worries will fade away. But I am not like those parents . . . It was very difficult for us to have a child. I went to the obstetrician only three weeks after...

Chart Korbjitti’s monks in training haven’t a prayer. I was a child of poor folks. My father therefore entrusted me to the temple, where I would be able to go to school as well. Initially, I missed home dearly. But as I stayed on, I became acclimated and began to find it fun because I had a lot of playmates. I met a number of fellow temple boys, who probably came from poor families like mine. We were all friends and happily played together. But there was one thing my friends...