MEKONG REVIEW: Seeing is believing (review)

Review by Philip Cornwel-Smith of

The King of Bangkok by Claudio Sopranzetti, Sara Fabbri and Chiara Natalucci (University of Toronto Press: 2021)

Walking through Bangkok is a sensory onslaught. And yet the city—and most publications about it—affect a soft face, glossing over harsh realities and erasing the notorious events from Thailand’s national narrative.

How much more heightened and hazardous, though, the city would be without sight. Blindness, and the heightened sensory perceptions that accompany it, are the themes of a brilliant new graphic novel, The King of Bangkok, which traces the impact of Thailand’s political, economic and social changes on a rural migrant to the capital, who later on loses his sight.

Social realism and political commentary are difficult, even dangerous, to publish in Thailand. Realism goes against the fantastical impression of the country that flatters both tourism and nationalism. There have been some novels about deprived farmers, such as Luk Isan by Khampun Boontawi, but far fewer about the urban poor.

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