Arid Dreams
Duanwad Pimwana author Mui Poopoksakul translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Tilted Axis Press
Published:7th May '20
Should be back in stock very soon
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.
“Incisive. . . . The petty concerns of [the characters’] daily lives—frustrated careers, infidelity, reconnecting with distant family— are hypnotically rendered in Pimwana’s telling. This is an exciting debut.” – Publishers Weekly
“Earthy, spare stories that paint a bleak portrait of human shortcomings.” – Kirkus Reviews
"Cleverly exposes the torment of imposed gender roles and their sprawling effect on characters’ psyches." – The New York Times
“Each of her stories poses its own moral challenge, pleasurable and unsettling at once. Taken together, they are a phenomenal puzzle to read.” – NPR
“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.” – Preti Taneja, author of We That Are Young
- Long-listed for Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2021 (UK)
ISBN: 9781911284406
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown