Thai author Veeraporn Nitiprapha doesn’t believe that things can really be explained by politics. “Political beliefs and confrontation weren’t enough to explain the hatred and insanity I was seeing,” Nitiprapha says of the divisions that dominated the cultural narrative in Thailand nearly 10 years ago. The ‘red shirt protests,’ as they’ve become known, resulted in countless deaths and years of unrest across the country, but what stood out to the former advertising mogul was separate from political identification or government opposition. “So I took more interest in the modern world,” she says.
And that’s where the story for her Southeast Asian Writers Award-winning novel The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth came from. Her novels have been referred to as seminal works of Thai culture, capturing the lyrical intricacies of the people and the country through emotional and vibrant depictions of individuals. Here, Nitiprapha shares her views on language, being patient with your characters and ‘literary roses’ just before this year’s Shanghai International Literary Festival.
Which of your characters do you relate to the most? Did they all develop over time with you revisiting them in previous chapters or did some come more easily than others?
I only realized later, after the book was published and had won an award, that Pran, the quiet musician in the story, thinks very loudly – too loudly. I guess his thoughts spell out the things I wanted to make most clear to my readers. But I do relate to all of the characters in ways that are very difficult to explain – it’s very personal. Like a friend, it takes time to get to know one another. You get closer and closer every time you write and rewrite a character. At first, they are shy, distant and quiet, and then one day, out of the blue and in a flash, they tell you secrets, long lost desires, weaknesses and flaws. You then realize that they trust you so much, and become a best friend, like someone you met in real life. It’s very romantic. Things like that I think make a story charming – it’s in the relationship you build and how you bond with the characters, a writer’s secrets, perhaps. I am glad I was so patient with each of them.
Do you feel like you have obligations to your characters?
You also have a responsibility, when the novel comes to its end, like you would with one of your real life best friends. I keep asking myself over and over again, ‘Have I been fair enough to her?’ ‘Has he gotten what he deserved?’ Even today, I still think about them often. What is Chareeya doing tonight? Could Pran find another woman who might love him truly? Is she pretty? I know this is silly, but I still miss them a lot at times.
Is there something universal in the content, themes or experiences of The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth’s characters?
Yes, the melodrama, the myths and illusions – these are all things that blind us. I guess the reason the book was welcomed by younger people in Thailand is that they found themselves within its pages, lost in the labyrinths they have built for themselves.
Have you read the English translation of your book?
I’m not really interested so much in what I feel about it. English is another language. I can’t trust my feelings towards a language that I don’t use daily and am not a native speaker of. I think of it as another platform.
Was it difficult for you to trust someone else to tell your story in another language?
As a writer, you have the choice of keeping the book in its original language forever, where it will be read by only a few people, or you trust a translator, let go completely, and see how the novel will work its way into the wider world.
I read it, and to be frank, it’s different, and that’s how I like to see my books – alive, growing, moving from one language to another. I’m lucky enough that I get to see it translated onto film, as I’ve already sold movie rights, but I’d love to see it in poems, paintings, songs or anything at all – it’s out of my hands and it feels quite lovely.
What do you think, or hope, a Chinese audience will take away from your work?
Everything! We are all human, and I have found myself and us in Chinese literature, in German novels, in Japanese works. If something is good enough, readers will find themselves there.
Is your work driven by fear in any capacity?
The fear of creating something new, I guess. If you’re not scared of what you’re doing, it means you already know how to work on the piece, and that is very bad news. It means the novel is normal, ordinary. There are millions and millions of books filling the shelves of the libraries in this small world. Why should yours be read, be heard, and exist? It’s because books are for reading, not writing. The story is there, a reader reads it, and that moment is precious. It’s something unique and private that belongs only to the writer and the reader. My rose is not your rose but when you read your rose, it combines with my rose and becomes our rose – a brief love affair, maybe, sweet and personal. From that point on, my rose will be in every rose a reader sees in life.
The Blind Earthwork in the Labyrinth was the first of your books to be translated. Is there another one in the works?
Yes! The unofficial English title will be something along the lines of ‘The Twilight Era and the Memory of the Memory of a Black-Rose Cat.’ It’s a magical-realism tale of a Chinese family that migrated to Thailand 200 years ago. The book is about temporal history, unwritten histories, the history of feelings, the history of people scattered and lost all over Asia, and how we are all longing for an unknown place, how we aren’t defined by any nationality at all. The story spans the Sino-Japanese War, World War II, the Civil War in China, and the Chinese diaspora across Southeast Asia. It’s different from the first book and I am pretty sure that when it comes out in English, lots of people will find it interesting. (Note: Nitiprapha’s second book, which also won the S.E.A. Write Award last October, is in the process of being translated into English with River Books, and is scheduled to be on shelves by the end of this year.)
March 25, 6pm, RMB100, Glam, see event listing, buy tickets here.
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