Arid Dreams
Stories
Duanwad Pimwana, Mui Poopoksakul
- 216 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Arid Dreams
Stories
Duanwad Pimwana, Mui Poopoksakul
About This Book
"One of Thailand's preeminent female writers... Each of her stories poses its own moral challenge, pleasurable and unsettling at once... phenomenal." âNPR.org In thirteen stories that investigate ordinary and working-class Thailand, characters aspire for more but remain suspended in routine. They bide their time, waiting for an extraordinary event to end their stasis. A politician's wife imagines her life had her husband's accident been fatal, a man on death row requests that a friend clear up a misunderstanding with a sex worker, and an elevator attendant feels himself wasting away while trapped, immobile, at his station all day. With curious wit, this collection offers revelatory insight and subtle critique, exploring class, gender, and disenchantment in a changing country. "Arid Dreams is stark, sly, and unsparingly brilliant. Here is a writer unafraid to pick up the scalpel of her prose and use it to cut to the bone. Each story is more compelling than the last, each combines dark humor with deeper truths about human desire and depravity. I couldn't look away." â Preti Taneja, author of We That Are Young "Pimwana's characters, whether they are truck drivers or farmers, doctors or prisoners, are realized with depth, affection, and a good degree of humor. The petty concerns of their daily livesâfrustrated careers, infidelity, reconnecting with distant familyâare hypnotically rendered in Pimwana's telling. This is an exciting debut." â Publishers Weekly "A deep and thoughtful exploration of human psyches and the dreams of ordinary Thais in an ever-changing socio-economic environment." âBangkok Post "An exacting look at the moments of joy and tragedy, of hope and desire." âIndependent Book Review