ABSTRACT
Kulāp Sāipradit, or ,1 as he is better known, is one of the most important figures in the development of modern Thai literature. His novel, Lūk Phū Chāi (A Real Man), first published in 1928, is often cited as the first Thai representative of the genre. Further novels and short stories quickly followed, and soon established him as a popular and prolific writer. His later works, dating from about 1949, showed an increasing concern with social injustice-a concern which was to lead to censorship of his writings, imprisonment and, finally, self-imposed exile in China. A gradual relaxation in the censorship laws in the late 1960s, followed by the radical change in the political climate between 1973 and 1976, brought
later more ‘political’ works back into circulation and it is on the basis of these more than a dozen short stories,2 two novels and numerous articles and translations-that much of his present reputation rests. His short stories, in particular, have been eagerly read by young people who have found, in his outspoken attacks on the rich and powerful, a voice for their own newly awakened idealism. These stories have been reprinted frequently, often in university student magazines, and have served as a model for a new generation of socially committed authors.
