Rattawut Lapcharoensap Reading
Rattawut Lapcharoensap reads “Draft Day” from his collection of stories entitled Sightseeing. Spending his childhood moving between Bangkok, Thailand and Chicago, Lapcharoensap discusses his time spent in the Thai armed reserves at the age of 16. He goes on to describe the current Thai military draft, claiming that the process is much more bureaucratic and “messy” than the past process described in “Draft Day.”
During a question and answer session, Lapcharoensap discusses the interplay of religion and politics in Thailand, pointing out that the temples in the country tend to function as community centers. Lapcharoensap talks about the unstable political climate of 1970’s Thailand, and how the details of this time have never been taught in the country’s schools. He recalls his time spent at the Cornell University archives, and his discovery of many banned books from Thailand that detailed this turbulent history.
Lapcharoensap further discusses his “geographically hyperactive upbringing”, and how these experiences affected his aspirations as a writer. He had considered writing to be a very formal, inaccessible professional practice until he was exposed to a wider array of Asian-American writers, which served to dissolve the disconnect he felt about writing.
Lapcharoensap ends by discussing the title story in Sightseeing, explaining the importance of the tourism trade in contemporary Thailand.
In: "Live from Prairie Lights" Audio Archive | Fiction
Authors: Rattawut Lapcharoensap
Date Recorded: February 14, 2005
Works Read: "Draft Day" from Sightseeing: stories by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
Program: Live From Prairie Lights
Format: reading
Contributors: Introduction by host Julie Englander.
Topics: military draft, Thailand, immigration, tourism