'Making Book in Bangkok"
By Tom Plate
Los Angeles - I have a
funny story to tell you. It’s about something I wrote two years
ago. I wouldn’t bother you with it except for the fact that it is so darn
hilarious. Or so it seems to
me. So if you don’t find this
funny, you can have a laugh on me.
When ‘Conversations with Thaksin’ in the Giants
of Asia series was initially published in Singapore, the hope of course is
that it would be widely read in Thailand, where the former prime minister was
still wildly controversial, and where his younger sister Yingluck had been
elected as the new PM. But when the original English edition was shipped
to Bangkok, the book was hard to come by in Thailand, due to the extreme caution
exercised by English-language retailers who were worried that the book was
insufficiently critical of the controversial Thaksin.
‘Conversations with Thaksin’, based on extensive interview sessions in the
billionaire tycoon’s Dubai exile home, was at that time the third volume in the
Giants of Asia book series published
by Marshall Cavendish International Asia and written by yours truly. The book
series presents leading political figures of Asia as they see themselves, cast
in the framework of observations on their political philosophies and on their
contribution to the history of their times.
Some reviewers found the revelations and intimate style of the series
invaluable; others faulted the portraits as unduly sympathetic, even
sycophantic.
But no one had ever said that the book was so critical of Thaksin or so
revelatory of his evil sins that Thaksin himself had mysteriously managed to
keep all the copies locked up in a vault so one could see the true terrible
truth!
Not, however, until a public attack at the end of January on the book, its
author amd Thaksin at an anti-government rally in Bangkok. What happened was
anti-Thaksin leader and “media expert” Somkiat Onwimon tore into the Thai
company Matichon Publishing for allegedly participating in a conspiracy to keep
the book from reaching the public, on the grounds that it cast such
unflattering light on Thaksin, the famous former prime minister of Thailand
ousted in 2006.
(For the video of the attack on the book, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6aeFfcKh8M)
The facts were the opposite! Matichon had translated the book into Thai in
2002. It was quite happily selling it. By contrast it was the original
English-language edition that remained hard (if not impossible) to find in
Thailand.
Matichon
was furious about the slur and issued a blistering statement that in part said:
“A quick search of the internet would have informed Mr Somkiat that Matichon
has translated and published ‘Conversations with Thaksin’, under the Thai name of ′Chab Kao Kui (Knee-Touching
Talk) : Thaksin Shinawatra′, since 2012. Matichon Publishing named Mr. Suranand Vejjajiva,
who is currently serving as the Secretary-General to the Prime Minister Office,
as the translator of the book. Therefore, ‘Matichon Ltd and Matichon
Publishing would like to stress that [Mr. Somkiat′s] speech is completely false’,
Perhaps the most telling comment on the Somkiat charge came from a
reader who tweeted to a Thai site: “Oh! Somkiat
Onwimon, you are so late, I got ‘GIANTS of ASIA’ three years ago.”
Booksellers through
Asia report a sharp uptick in sales.
Oh how lovely!
Tom Plate, Loyola Marymount
University’s Distinguished Scholar on Asian and Pacific Studies, is the author
of the ‘Giants of Asia’ quartet, which includes books on Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir
Mohamad, Thaksin Shinawatra and Ban Ki-moon. His new book is ‘In the Middle of
the Future: Tom Plate on Asia’ (Marshall Cavendish Singapore)
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