May, 1992: I went to Sanam Luang that May. 80,000 people had gathered to bring down the government. Police and soldiers surrounded the area. Barbed-wire barricades across key streets. The violence that swiftly followed has never been fully examined. I remember the pickups with gunmen in the back racing down Asoke. I heard gun shots in the night. The police kiosk throughout the Sukhumvit Road area had been burnt out.
In the third novel of the Land of Smiles trilogy, A Haunting Smile, the narrative is driven by the events of May 1992. The novel recounts the nature and scope of the violent social changes that erupted that May. A Haunting Smile spotlights the social tensions that came to the surface in 1992 and once again have bubbled to the top in 2006. And I would like to think that A Haunting Smile is as relevant today as when it was published in 1993.
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