“The snakes were the first to seek higher ground. Bangkok has faced rapid industrialization to accommodate so many tourists and tourist industry workers, leaving the city with fewer of the green spaces and natural coastlines that serve as natural defenses against flooding. The city’s precariousness adds a certain morbid twist to its appeal as a destination that has only added to its woes. Experts predict that 40% of Bangkok will be underwater by 2030 if no major changes are made to mitigate the damage. Sudbanthad maps a sense of perspective and possibility that feels urgent for a city that has faced existential threats long before the current outbreak of the coronavirus.īangkok is sinking as the sea is rising around it. The debut novelist deftly cuts across present time, slipping in and out of the past and future to bring forward a slate of characters who inhabit different periods in Bangkok. The novel offers a guided tour of corners of Bangkok that may well be overlooked by the average visitor, as well is its temporal contours.
Millions of people who had planned to visit Bangkok are also under some form of social distancing or stay-at-home order, nursing a sense of uncertainty not only about when traveling safely will be possible again, but what sort of world we’ll re-enter.īangkok Wakes to Rain, a novel by Pitchaya Sudbanthad imagines both.
The Thai New Year, which usually draws throngs of people into the street for days in mid-April-splashing one another with water guns, buckets, and even elephants to cleanse away past misdeeds-saw almost no action this year. For the past several years, Bangkok has been the most-visited city in the world, drawing 22 million visitors in 2019. Like urban centers across the globe, this metropolis-once filled with selfie-stick toting and sunscreen-slathered tourists-was eerily stilled because of a strictly enforced lockdown that is now being eased.
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