'This debut show more than mere promise: it is a fine achievement in its own right.' -- Guardian

One of the most widely talked about debuts of 2005, Sightseeing is a masterful storytelling by an award-winning young author.

In poignant, tough, heart-catching episodes, Rattawut Lapcharoensap takes his readers beneath the surface of Thailand to a place that is dynamic and corrupt, full of pride and passion and fear. In these inter-generational stories of luck and loss, mother and son, Thai and tourist, healthy and sick are bound together.

Sightseeing introduces its readers to the young boy and his brother speeding on a moped to the Cafe Lovely, a brothel in Bankok; Priscilla the Cambodian, a girl whose mouth is stuffed with the family fortune; a woman approaching blindness who barters for a last pair of sunglasses; and a pig called Clint Eastwood.

Sightseeing reveals, slowly and powerfully that no place is too far away from home when it comes to pain, anger, love or hurt. It explores through confident and unforgettable storytelling what it means to be a son, a brother, a parent, a lover, a Thai — and a disenfranchised resident of the global village.

Books in the “Thailand” bookshelf created by Søren Esbjørn