This book is a sensational product of the Southeast Asian literary world, featuring experimental-minded, eccentric and humane characters in a long-awaited collection of twenty short stories by Thai writer Prabda Yoon. The collection features Bara-mee Khong Pho Mun, featuring a protagonist who struggles with being stigmatized as a "man who can enjoy fame" due to the path-smoothing influence of his renowned father. Khwam Na Ja Pen describes a long reminiscence of a moment in the life of a sheet of paper dropping from a careless hand to the floor until it is picked up. The collection, which is characterized by its fresh stretch of imagination and a barrage of deep words, is a new type of Southeast Asian literature, quite different from the works amid recent booming light novel popularity. <Featuring S.E.A. Write Award-winning Khwam Na Ja Pen (Probability)> In another story, Prabda Yoon describes a family that can secure its ties only through obsessive acts; a widow who considers her breasts and a meat bun with the same sense of value; and a proudly independent person who enjoys "reading"people in a park. These comic/tragic characters are described by a writer with a unique Thai mentality and seem quite humane. His works are full of characteristics of the Thai-style postmodern literature. (From the translatorﾕs afterword) The translator's profile The translator is Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Professor Seiji Udo. Born in Fukuoka, he graduated from Waseda University School of Social Sciences while working as an assistant curator at the Goto Museum. From 1976 on, he stayed in Thailand for four years as a long-dispatched researcher in Bangkok from the Association for Overseas Technical Scholarship (AOTS). After coming back home, he completed his master's course at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Graduate School and became an assistant there in 1986. He is currently a professor whose specialty is Thai literature. His main writings include: Appreciating Thai Literature (the Japan Foundation Asia Center); Immoral Unreal: A Short Novel Collection by Modern Thai Writer Win Leowarin (the International Foundation for the Promotion of Languages and Culture); An Invitation to Southeast Asian Literature (coauthored, Dandansha); and Daily Japanese-Thai-English and Thai-Japanese-English Dictionary (Sanseido Bookstore Ltd.). Publication detail Title Kagami no Naka o Kazoeru Author Prabda Yoon Translator Seiji Udo Cover Illustration Kaori Yuzawa Size 175×128mm       Pages 244pages Format Paperback Price 1,890yen Date of publication 10th May 2007 ISBN 978-4-9903621-0-2