A polyphonic reimagining of Thai history, sweeping from the earth’s creation to the fragmented future of one family

An immortal spirit cycles through multiple lives as a tree, a naga, a deer, a rock, and a human. A doctor suffers a stroke and embarks upon a quest for justice in the afterlife. A wife and mother lives out the soap opera of her dreams. A ghostwriter deals with the violent tragedy that befalls his family by turning it into fiction. A woman from the future struggles to break free from a life shaped by her lineage.
The Fabulist is an epic novel by Uthis Haemamool. Spooling out of the district of Kaeng Khoi in Saraburi, Thailand, this book follows four generations of narrative threads as they bluff, conceal, confess, and rewrite themselves into the history of a nation that has long relegated them to the margins of its story.

Palin Ansusinha graduated with a BA in English Language and Literature from King’s College London in 2017. She translated several Thai short stories into English, including ‘The World Shattered Yesterday’, ‘Tender Mercies’, and ‘The Weretiger Tale’ by Phu Kradat. In 2020, she co-founded Soi Literary, a literary agency to promote contemporary Thai literature to an international audience. She currently lives in Bangkok, Thailand with her cat Jamu.

Uthis Haemamool was born in 1975 in Kaeng Khoi district, Saraburi province in central Thailand. Among his seven published novels and four short stories collection, he became widely known for the Kaeng Khoi Trilogy containing the novels The Brotherhood of Kaeng Khoi, which won him the Seven Book Awards and the S.E.A. Write Award in 2009; The Elegy, and The Fabulist. 

Ploy Kingchatchaval graduated with a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge in 2016 and an MA in Issues in Modern Culture from University College London in 2017. She translated the English screenplay for Puangsoi Aksornsawang’s second feature film I open a curtain to see a dead bird and Jirassaya Wongsutin’s debut feature film Flat Girls, both in development. She currently lives in Bangkok, Thailand with her dog Tofu.