A Good True Thai is the debut novel by Thai-American Sunisa Manning, who was born and raised in Bangkok. Set in Thailand during the 70s student movement and inspired by true events, the book is about three young people whose paths converge at university, where they are swept up by political activism and the thrill of first love.
The novel was a finalist for the 2020 Epigram Books Fiction Prize. Guru speaks to Manning, who now lives in California, about her novel and its timely publication.
What made you decide to write A Good True Thai?
The playwright Sarah Ruhl says there's a public and a private reason every play is written, and I believe the same is true for novelists. The reason I usually share is that I learned that some of the nobility radicalised in the 1970s to work for more opportunity for others. This contradiction is fertile ground for fiction. Because Thailand is a small country, members of the elite would lose some of their privileges by radicalising. I had to try and write a story where someone could be credibly motivated to have less, so that others could have more. Tracing that arc made me hopeful.
The private reason, which I have never shared before, is that I was looking for a way to think about monarchy, power and access. I felt that situating the book historically would allow me to do so with a little more safety. If you're Thai, safety has to be on your mind.
How did you research for the book?
Slowly! I read Pasuk Pongpaichit and Chris Baker's A History Of Thailand for general background, then several books and articles by scholars of the 1970s democracy movement. They're all named in the Author's Note at the back of my book. Through Prof Thongchai Winichakul I connected with former activists to interview them about their experience. Lastly, I went up to Phu Hin Rong Kla, where some of the radicalised students fled. I wanted to experience a place where the Communists had actually been. I was looking for details like what the sleeping cots looked like, and how the passage of time feels in the jungle. These are not usually in history books.
A Good True Thai.
Could there have been better timing for publication of the book? Though based in the 70s, do you think the book puts into perspective what's happening in Thailand today?
Isn't it funny? The timing could not be better. The novelist Jokha Alharti has said that books have destiny, that they have a way of finding their place in the world. Maybe that's how A Good True Thai launched on Oct 14, 2020, the same day the current democracy protests kicked up. I think the novel situates the struggles for democracy that Thailand has been going through for a long time. There's a way that we like to think that students are engaged in something unprecedented. It's more glamorous that way. I'd say that the current democracy movement is bold, courageous and that it builds on a lineage that stretches back to 1932. When you consider that, you have to see that Thai people have been working for access and opportunity for a very long time.
In an interview, you said you have a unique position as a Thai and an American. How has this influenced your writing, especially the way the story is narrated?
I miss Thailand a lot right now, and think of it with so much love and tenderness. I've been living in America for a decade. Being luk khrueng means that I am both, though I'm often considered neither. It's a liminal space that provides some distance. This helps when writing a novel, because as the writer Zadie Smith has said, the job of fiction writers is to say: 'things could be otherwise'. For me, my biracial heritage has given me the distance to see Thailand in order to imagine not just what happened, but what might have been.
'They think we are a quiet kingdom' is a quote from the book. Does this still hold true today? Has social media and the current political climate changed the way the world looks at Thailand, the 'land of smiles'?
Thailand, traditionally, has deliberately hidden our violence and the grip on power by a small elite behind an image that was carefully projected. The image makes the Kingdom seem pleasant, tranquil. It can take a foreigner many years before they realise how much they aren't being allowed to see, or how much they aren't themselves open to seeing, because they are caught in their own fantasy of travelling to the perfect exotic place.
These ideas of Thailand are starting to be punctured by the scale and scope of the democracy movement. I am excited about this. We may be a small country, but we are just as complex and layered as anywhere else, and having that recognised abroad only grants Thai people the power and agency that we deserve.
To an extent, there are similarities between the 70s and 2020. If you were to base the book in today's scenario, would it change much?
It would have to. The military in 2020 can't act with as much impunity as they did in the 1970s. Social media has brought more eyes to the arena. A Good True Thai takes place against a historic backdrop that is accurate. The book ends around the time of the Oct 6, 1976 massacre at Thammasat University. This time, we may have a different ending.
Which character in the book do you identify with the most and why?
Hard to say, because they're all my babies. To some extent, they began as aspects of myself. Lek shares my passion, Chang my idealism, Det my sensitivity. That's how they started. Over the years, they grew into their own people.
That said, the character I most admire is Dao. She's the late-breaking heroine of the second half of the book. When I was writing, I felt that Dao was a direction for the whole book to go, if only I could let her keep doing what she was doing. I loved that feeling.
You said your intended audience was Southeast Asians. Was the book written with them in mind? What do you want them to take from the book? What should the Western world take from the book?
Lan Samantha Chang wrote that the honest reaction to making a work of art is awe. I agree, and am not sure that I get to direct who the audience is. Maybe the audience is whoever connects with it. This might be anyone who loves Thailand, whether they're NGO workers, Southeast Asians, foreign correspondents, tourists, foodies -- anyone who is excited to encounter something substantial set in a place they love. Since I wrote the book in English, the audience can't be the majority of Thai people, though it is my sincere hope that the novel will be translated.
The important thing is that I centred Thai people in the novel. Our hopes, our struggles. I hope that readers have a tonne of fun reading the book, and feel that they've touched something with real dimension and fire, from a time when Thais were trying to change our society.
What makes a good true Thai in 2020; in the world we live in today?
That's the central question of my novel. It's what the three main characters keep debating in A Good True Thai, because there's no easy answer. I do think that 'goodness', in a country that calls itself a Buddhist one, means that we could admit that it's natural for things to change, and stop holding so tightly to the way things were.
Visit sunisamanning.com.
