Mesmerizing and unputdownable - a virtuoso translation of what must surely be one of the best Thai novels to make it into English. -- Lawrence Osborne, author of Hunters in the Dark and Only to Sleep

At its core, this novel from Veeraporn Nitiprapha has a simple dynamic: the tension between two sisters, and the young man whose life interweaves with each of theirs. What makes this novel unique is its attention to the granular, whether it's the music that several of its characters obsess over or its author's tendency to fill in the history or future of a specific character at a moment's notice. ― Words Without Borders, February 2019 Watchlist

Engrossing and addictive – a unique window onto the Thai soul in turmoil. More than any other Thai publication in English currently out right now, The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth is the most complete and enjoyable novel for losing one's self in Thai fiction. ― Asian Review of Books (Hong Kong)

Nitiprapha has been referred to as the Arundhati Roy of Thailand. [Her] unorthodox style and prowess, which mirrors the classical Thai drama, has made her an international phenomenon one should not miss out on. ― Scroll.in (India)

Nitiprapha's feverish and dreamy novel … is a tour de force that looks at the romantic ideals that come to us from stories and songs, and how they can cause us to lose our way, like blind earthworms in a labyrinth. Compelled to write this book after seeing the clashes between pro- and anti-government forces in Thailand in 2010, [she] seems to suggest that, just like romanticising love, romanticising political leaders can lead to madness and delusion. … This slim novel is like a seductive and intoxicating soap opera. Melodramatic and mesmerising, the book dives deep into love and comes up smelling of roses. ― The Straits Times newspaper (Singapore)

The effect of Veeraporn's narrative is akin to a malarial hallucination, but that's what Bangkok feels like: a soap opera in which someone wakes up and realizes that the preceding episodes were all just a fever dream. Or is the waking the actual dream?....Veeraporn's Bangkok is an immersive experience, exotic but not exoticized. ― The New York Times Book Review

Rich with mythical imagery, [The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth] plunges the reader into a contemporary Thai life strongly influenced by Western culture while steeped in timeless traditions and Buddhist thought, and roiled by decades of political dissent. … The translator has done a masterful job of capturing the author's sumptuous prose, each sentence unfurling like a brightly dyed bolt of silk. Despite a doomed sense of a tragedy foretold, the story is a celebration of life that engages all the senses, redolent with food and music, fecund with the splendor of nature, opulent with life, as one story uncovers another story and on into infinity. … [A] rare glimpse into the torrid heart of modern Thai life. ― Washington Independent Review of Books

★The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth won the 2015 S.E.A. Award, Southeast Asia's most prestigious literary prize. It is now masterfully translated into English by Kong Rithdee, film critic and award-winning author in her own right.

★Tuned to the rhythms of the soap operas that air on Thai television each night and written with the consuming intensity of a fever dream, this novel opens an insightful and truly compelling window into the Thai heart.

This is a melodrama about a ship-wrecked relationship.

Set in Thailand and traveling loosely over the 1980s and ‘90s, with mention of a political incident in 2010, this sad and beautiful book begins on the day Chareeya is born, the same day her mother discovers her father having an affair with a traditional Thai dancer. From that moment on, Chareeya's life is bound to the weight of her parents' disappointments.

She and her sister Chalika grow up in a lush, tranquil riverside town near the Thai capital of Bangkok, captivated by romance novels, classical music and games of make-believe. As children, the two develop a friendship with an orphaned boy, Pran. Over time these childhood friends find themselves lost between unrequited desires and fantastical dreams that are realer than their everyday lives. The culmination of the story comes as neither Chareeya, Chalika, nor Pran can exit safely from the intertwined labyrinth of their fates.

The author's lyrical prose is enchanting: the book is filled with the colors, sounds and fragrances of Thailand. Her language has a hazy cinematic effect as characters maneuver through magical remembrances of events gone by, often failing to confront the problems in front of them.

Dangerous and irresistible, the story can be read either as a nod to old-fashioned Thai romances, or as a sophisticated, literary upgrade of the soap opera drama, or as a bitter commentary on the myths, smokescreens and delusions that seem to have disoriented the Thai people with many years' heartbreak in attendance.

Veeraporn Nitiprapha is a Thai author of novels and short stories. Her work has been acclaimed for its distinctive lyrical character, often influenced by classical Thai literature, and its subtle reflection on human relationship in modern Asian society and its intersection with current politics. Her first novel ไส้เดือนตาบอดในเขาวงกต (Blind Earthworms in a Labyrinth) won the prestigious Southeast Asian Writers Award (also known as S.E.A. Write Award) in 2015 and established her among the leading Southeast Asian writers of her generation. Nitiprapha has published several short stories in magazines, which are noted for their innovative narrative techniques and stylistic richness. Her second novel พุทธศักราชอัสดงกับทรงจำของทรงจำของแมวกุหลาบดำ(The Dusk of Buddhist Era and Memory of Black Rose Cat ) won S.E.A. Write Award in 2018,making her the first woman to win the literary award twice.

Born in Bangkok, Veeraporn Nitiprapha was the second of two children in her family. She grew up and spent most of her life in Bangkok. She started writing and publishing poems and short stories at the age of 17. After a short period of studies in Melbourne, Australia, she returned to Bangkok and began her first career as an editor for a fashion magazine and then a copywriter for various advertising agencies, later becoming a creative director. She then decided to leave the advertising industry and turned to jewelry design. Since her jewelry brand, which she had run for more than a decade, closed down, she has been devoting herself entirely to writing.