Arid Dreams

BY Duanwad Pimwana / TRanslated from thai BY Mui Poopoksakul

Longlisted, 2021 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation

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.

PRAISE

“A confident writer at the top of her game, with a distinctive skill to conjure unique personalities on the page.” —Words Without Borders

“Illuminating, funny and dark. Full of subtle power.” – Irenosen Okojie

“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

“Across these subtle stories of social realism, desire is the infrastructure for everyday life. (…) cleverly exposes the torment of imposed gender roles and their sprawling effect on characters’ psyches.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Each of her stories poses its own moral challenge, pleasurable and unsettling at once. Taken together, they are a phenomenal puzzle to read.” – NPR

“One of the most gripping collections I’ve come across in years.” —Books and Bao

“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

MORE INFORMATION

• Publication date: 21 May 2020

• Extent: 250 pp

• Format: B-format paperback (198mm × 127mm)

• ISBNs: 978-1-911284-40-6 (print) / 978-1-911284-39-0 (ebook)

• Rights held: World English excl. North America