“Translation is a time-consuming, arduous and often thankless task. Literary translation also involves suppressing some natural impulses to interpret, edit and impose a personal style, while remaining in the background and allowing the tale to take root in another language.
Marcel Barang, 67, is not just a translator but active in the literary sphere, promoting the talents he feels merit it. In 12 Thai Short Stories _ 2012 he collated a dozen of last year's finest short fiction by Thai writers into an accessible and absorbing e-book. The styles and subjects are a study in contrasts, pointing to increasing depth and nuance in new Thai fiction. They are the ones, out of the hundreds Barang reads each year, that he feels stand on their own on merit.
This collection features a past SEA Write winner (Ussiri Dharmachoti) and nominee (Watn Yuangkaew), a prominent film critic (Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa) and the 'Pink Man' poet and artist (Sompong Thawee) _ authors from the up-and-coming to the established.
Here the supernatural features prominently, with a three-eyed child, a village drowning in dog excrement, a ghost of a bygone revolution, a false pregnancy. There are also more prosaic slice-of-life pieces, with an excellent story on family funeral politics by Kajohnrit Ragsa, and on psychological disorders such as social phobia and madness. Murder also makes an appearance. In some stories, a poetic style takes precedence over narrative.
The anthology works well as a whole, but is inconclusive in terms of trends or what direction Thai fiction might be headed in 2013. In an interview, Barang told Brunch that the breadth of subject matter Thai writers work with continues to widen.”
