Prabda Yoon

Prabda Yoon

Prabda Yoon (Thai: ปราบดา หยุ่น; RTGS: Prapda Yun; born on August 2, 1973 in Bangkok) is a Thai writer, novelist, filmmaker, artist, graphic designer, magazine editor, screenwriter, translator and media personality. His literary debut, Muang Moom Shak (City of Right Angles), a collection of five related stories about New York City, and the follow-up story collection, Kwam Na Ja Pen (Probability), both published in 2000, immediately turned him into a sensation of contemporary Thai literature. In 2002, Kwam Na Ja Pen won the S.E.A. Write Award, the most prestigious literary prize in Thailand, making Prabda a household name and icon of his generation. He is among the most well known and influential of Thai writers. Prabda has been prolific, having written over 20 books of fiction and nonfiction in ten years, designed over 100 book covers for many publishers and authors, translated a number of modern western classics such as Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Pnin, all of J.D. Salinger's books, Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, and Karel Capek's R.U.R. He has also written two acclaimed screenplays for Thai "new wave" filmmaker Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, "Last Life in the Universe" (2003) and "Invisible Waves" (2006). Prabda's literary work has been translated to Japanese and published in Japan regularly. He has exhibited his artworks (paintings, drawings, installations) in Thailand and Japan. He has also produced music and written songs with the bands Buahima and The Typhoon Band, respectively. In 2004, Prabda founded Typhoon Studio, a small publishing house with two imprints, Typhoon Books and Sunday Afternoon. In 2012, he opened Bookmoby Readers' Cafe, a small bookshop at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. In 2015, Prabda wrote and directed his first feature film, "Motel Mist", which was selected to premiere and compete at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2016. The Sad Part Was, a collection of Prabda’s short stories in English, translated from Thai by Mui Poopoksakul (who won an English PEN Award for her translation), was published by the London-based independent press Tilted Axis and released in the UK on March 3, 2017. It is said to be the first translation of Thai fiction to be published in the UK.

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