Pira Sudham

Pira Sudham Thai พีระ สุธรรม) is a writer from the Isan Region of Thailand. He was born to a family of poor rice farmers in Napo Village, Buriram Province. At the age of fourteen he left his home village for Bangkok to become a servant to Buddhist monks in a monastery where he also attended a secondary school. Later he entered Triam Udom High School before gaining a place at Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. He won a New Zealand Government scholarship to read English Literature at Auckland University and then Victoria University of Wellington, where his first story was published by New Zealand's leading literary quarterly Landfall. Since then Pira Sudham has been writing short stories, poems and novels in English. He has not produced any literary works in the Thai language.

Bibliography

• Siamese Drama published in 1983.The expanded and revised edition of the book was published in 2002 under the title of 'Tales of Thailand'.

People of Esarn published in 1987. The book has been extensively revised and expanded into two parts, namely "People of Esarn - The Damned of Thailand & The Kingdom in Conflicts and published in 2007.

• Monsoon Country, the prequel,published in 1988 and has undergone several editions including Mahanaga Edition 2002.
• The Force of Karma, the sequel to Monsoon Country, published in 2002.
• Shadowed Country, published in 2004. The 750-page hardcover edition is the combination of Book One (Monsoon Country, the prequel) and Book Two (The Force of Karma, the sequel). To combine the two books into one volume the author revised and expanded both works to cover the tumultous times in the history of Thailand. To make the combination seamless, the author assiduously rewrote both books, making use of his vast experiences and observations in later years. Pira Sudham's literary works deal with the characters and circumstances of his fellow villagers as well as those on his path. They include the great and the good, the rich and the poor, the famous and the infamous, piety and venality.The saga explores Thailand's social-political transition taking place in the past 50 years. Pira Sudham has lived for over twenty years in Australia and in the U.K., writing short stories, poems and his first novel, Monsoon Country'. For subsequent editions of the works, the author uses his name in full: Pira Canning Sudham.

==References==

External links

• Pira Sudham's official site