No matter what form of work I create, I am highly concerned about originality. Creating something new always makes me proud.

Literature is about asking questions, not reaching conclusions. Logic is derived from imagination. I think we should let our imagination—not our reasoning—grow.

SEA Write Awards should have 100 nominees or more—10 are not enough. The SEA Write Awards should attract people to books, because reading has never firmly taken root in Thai culture.

Literature can develop in Thai society if we get more readers. We need to get people to that critical point where those who read are the majority and cause a sudden change in society. For example, The Ring: It’s just a normal thriller, but after thousands of people read it, it led to a new genre of modern thriller.

My inspiration comes from both Thai and international history alike. For example, 8 1/2 Richter was inspired by the Ku Gam story, which is very political. Although people think of it as a touching love story, it actually questions Japanese authoritarianism.

If I could pick one book to describe Thai society today, I would choose Dogwalker by Arthur Bradford [translated into Thai by Prabda Yun as Kon
Hua Ma].

Nowadays, humans are more like animals. Everybody only competes for himself or herself and uses nothing but basic instincts.

We lack sexual fantasy literature in Thailand. Lately, literature abides by mainstream morality too much. SEA Write should pick authors with less traditional styles as nominees; just one book per year would be enough.

I hope to reach the masses with my novel, but it will be tough. In today’s world, the masses are more influential than the contents of a book.

If I had to categorize my books, I’d say they are serious literature. Unchallenging stories don’t pay much attention to imagination and creativity.

Serious literature focuses on content. These books try to collide with people’s thoughts, activate the imagination. An essential point of serious literature is creating independent ideas.

It would be great if there were an exchange of ideas between serious and less challenging novels. I’m positive that one day someone will be able to lessen the gap between these two types of books.

People say that serious books are full of metaphors, and that’s true. The reason is that metaphors lead people to their own ideas. But “full of metaphors” is different from “hard to understand”: Serious literature can be easy to understand, too.

Less is more. Being simple is good, but less can be boring if it’s not good enough. In a way, Thaksin’s words are interesting, because they stimulate people’s imagination.

In the past, form followed function, but nowadays I think form must follow imagination.