The Bunnag family is one of Thailand's most eminent. Siriwong Bunnag was the formidable and omnipotent Regent of Siam during the minority of King Chulalongkorn in the 19th century. The family assumed an importance comparable to that of the Fujiwaras in ninth- to 12th-century Japan. The present queen of Thailand is from this house. And now another family member rises to eminence.
Tew Bunnag, born in 1947, was schooled at Cambridge (King's College), established a therapeutic center outside the college and is at present helping to care for AIDS patients in a Bangkok hospice. Author of several books and articles on meditation and tai chi, he also, in this collection of short stories, shows himself to be a writer of compassion and critical insight.
His Bangkok -- a metaphor for the country and, by extension, the world -- is not the exotic, sensual, pleasure-filled capital we read about today. In the epilogue to this collection he writes: "I really do not know how to describe Bangkok, whose ugliness has grown on me like fungus on a damp wall."