A question of history | Bangkok Post: lifestyle

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Atibhop Pataradetpisan believes in sound, in silence, and in literature _ not necessarily in that order. As a young man Atibhop studied classical composition at Tashkent State University in Uzbekistan. He came back to Thailand to teach music at Mahidol University, and in the meantime he wrote stories and poetry, some of which were collected into books.

Two years ago, he quit the teaching job to become a full-time writer. But music and letters prove to be snuggling bedfellows _ and when you throw in a little bit of political observation and social commentary, you have Atibhop's columns in Siam Rath newspaper, Fine Art magazine, and Sarakadee. "The challenge is to talk both about art, music and politics in my columns," says the man with the flowing hair. Earlier this year, he published his first novel, Prawatsat Khong Kwam Ngieb (The history of silence), which experiments with the complex layers of truth and virtual truth (including a fake information about a character planted online) and roughly based on the Oct 6, 1976 uprising. "It's a metaphor of that event. It's not a historical book, but a book that questions history, especially official history."

The Thai translation of Antonio Tabucchi’s novel Notturno Indiano [the story of a man who looks for his disappearing friend in India]. The translation is by Nantawan Chanprasert. The book reveals itself as a story, and it grabs me
hard.