On November 16 and 17, the Neilson Hays Bangkok Literature Festival will be held, with the theme of bridging the world through letters.

Celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, the Neilson Hays Library, in collaboration with the Office of Contemporary Art and Culture (OCAC), is organizing the festival.  Events will take place at the Neilson Hays Library, the British Club, Chulalongkorn University and Chakrabongse Villas. 

The Thammasat University Library owns a history of the Neilson Hays Library. It is shelved in the General Stacks of the Puey Ungphakorn Library, Rangsit campus. In its original form, it was called the Bangkok Ladies’ Library Association, founded in 1869. Later it was named in honor of Jennie Neilson, a Danish Protestant missionary who married Dr. Thomas Heyward Hays, chief of the Royal Thai Navy Hospital. She was active in the library’s administration.

Distinguished speakers 

Among the many speakers of interest at the festival will be Anusorn Tipayanon, whose books are in the TU Library collection.

Formerly an instructor at Silpakorn University, Ajarn Anusorn has received a Southeast Asian Writers Award (SEA Write Award) nomination.

He told an online interviewer: 

No matter what form of work I create, I am highly concerned about originality. Creating something new always makes me proud. Literature is about asking questions, not reaching conclusions. Logic is derived from imagination. I think we should let our imagination—not our reasoning—grow… Literature can develop in Thai society if we get more readers. We need to get people to that critical point where those who read are the majority and cause a sudden change in society. For example, The Ring: It’s just a normal thriller, but after thousands of people read it, it led to a new genre of modern thriller. If I could pick one book to describe Thai society today, I would choose Dogwalker by Arthur Bradford [translated into Thai by Prabda Yun as Kon Hua Ma].

Also speaking at the festival will be Jidanun Lueangpiansamut, a SEA Write Award winner. Khun Jidanun is a graduate of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University, where she majored in Russian. The TU Library owns several of her books. 

She began publishing when she was still a student at Thammasat. She informed an online interviewer that the book which changed her life was The Most Silent School in the World by Fa Poonvoralak.

The TU Library owns works by Fa Poonvoralak. Khun Jidanun recalls:

I changed many things about my own writing after reading it. This book always inspires me. It also comforts me in hard times. It is just like… the summary of the whole universe. I have been in love with it ever since I was seventeen.

Last year she told the Bangkok Post  about the first book she ever read:

“It was back when I was in Grade 1,” said Jidanun. That first spark of imagination came in the Thai translation of The Amazing Adventures Of Chilly Billy by Peter Mayle — a story about a tiny creature living inside a refrigerator. “I was so into it that I would sneak around, trying to open our family’s fridge quickly to see if I could catch anybody inside.” Her favourite book is Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake — a story about a girl who can taste the emotion of the person who cooks the food she eats. “I like stories with a bit of magic in them,” said the young writer.

The TU Library owns a copy of The particular sadness of lemon cake,  a novel by Aimee Bender. It is shelved in the Fiction Stacks of the Boonchoo Treethong Library, Lampang campus. The TU Library also owns a number of books by Peter Mayle. 

She described to the Bangkok Post how she approaches writing:

Each story usually starts with a philosophical question or certain issue, from something I encountered in life or learned in class. Then I’ll create a story to convey that issue, setting the core theme and building a story around it,” she said. “It is something that you can think beyond and take the content further on your own. You may see it the way I see it, or you could interpret it your own way.

Other noteworthy guests

Another speaker at the Festival will be Rewat Panpipat, whose work is included in a book in the TU Library collection, Anthology of Thai short stories since the 1930s. 

Copies of this book are shelved in the General Stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus, and the Puey Ungphakorn Library, Rangsit campus.

Rewat Panpipat has received the Silpathorn Award for Literature and the SEA Write Award. In 2016, he told the Bangkok Post that poetry was no longer part of the daily lives of most Thai people:

It is not because Thais are less poetic. Poetic licence is now found in our advertisement slogans, or lyrics in luk thung songs,” says Rewat Panpipat, 2004 SEA-Write Award poet. “But the modern generation no longer knows about our traditional heritage with poetry because our education system does not acknowledge its value.

Decades ago, Thai students had to recite poems in class, he notes. These memorized poems

helped cultivate literature and poetry appreciation in students’ characters. The new curriculum does not acknowledge the value of making kids recite poems in their daily life… Poetry is now a niche cultural product consumed among diehard fans. My books do not attract many readers. Most of my readers are long-time fans, and most of them live in the province and will place their order directly with the publishers…There are no barriers for those who really want to understand the culture of others. People in developing nations have always tried to understand Western culture when they read translated books. I see no reason why people cannot understand the culture of Asian rural life if they really want to know. They will enjoy the beauty if they can suspend prejudices.

Another noted writer at the Festival will be Veeraporn Nitiprapha, whose novel The blind earthworm in the labyrinth, among other works, is in the TU Library collection. She has also won the SEA Write Award.

And yet another eminent speaker will be Ajarn Vitit Muntarbhorn,  an international human rights expert and professor of law at Chulalongkorn University, many of whose books are in the TU Library collection.

These include The challenge of law: legal cooperation among ASEAN countries; The core human rights treaties and Thailand: a study in honour of the Faculty of Law, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok; Dimensions of human rights in the Asia-Pacific Region; Employment and protection of migrant workers in Thailand: national laws/practices versus international labour standards?; Human rights and human development: Thailand country study; A sourcebook for reporting under the convention on the rights of the child; The status of refugees in Asia; Status of women. Thailand; Unity in connectivity?: evolving human rights mechanisms in the ASEAN region; and Women’s development in Thailand.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)