Background

About Pira Canning Sudham

Born in Tumbol Napo, in Burirum Province, Esarn (North Eastern Thailand) Pira Canning Sudham received a basic education based on rote learning and authoritative teaching in the village primary school and in a state high school in Bangkok. While in the second year at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, he won a New Zealand government scholarship to study English Literature at University of Auckland and later at Victoria University. Having chosen to write in English, he continued to read English literature in Australia and in England where he wrote poems, short stories and Monsoon Country, the first book of Shadowed Country.

His writings, which include The Force of Karma, a sequel to Monsoon Country, People of Esarn (includes The Kingdom in Conflicts), and Tales of Thailand, stem partly from defiance for having lived a suppressed life in the 1960’s-1970’s under despotic regimes and partly from a driving force, having first-hand experiences of dire needs and social injustice in Thailand.

He leads a solitary life in his home village where he teaches and provides scholarships to needy students in and around the District of Napo.

Widely read and highly acclaimed, Thai novelist Pira Canning Sudham’s literary works have become a powerful voice of the silent and powerless people of Esarn (North Eastern Thailand).