The circus of life

The disaffected son of a Thai aristocrat
goes to study law in London in the early 1920s,
only to fall in love with an English journalist and become a reporter.
In England, France, the US, Japan and China,
their work and his fear of poverty and cultural incompatibility
conspire to keep them apart and their love unfulfilled.
When his eyesight fails him, he returns to Siam
broke and broken-hearted.

The Circus of Life is the first important Thai novel,
providing unusual glimpses of the western world
and Asia between the wars.
Written by a young prince adroitly mixing fact and fiction,
it created a storm when it was published in 1929
(the author killed himself three years later at the age of 26).
Thanks to its classic craftsmanship, fast pace, lively tone
and themes of alienation, absurdity and injustice in life,
this pioneering work of fiction remains astonishingly modern.