The King of Bangkok

The English translation of this bestselling graphic novel tells the story of Nok, an old blind man who sells lottery tickets in Bangkok, as he decides to leave the city and return to his native village. Through reflections on contemporary Bangkok and flashbacks to his past, Nok reconstructs a journey through the slums of migrant workers, the rice fields of Isaan, the tourist villages of Ko Pha Ngan, and the Red Shirt protests of 2010.

Based on a decade of anthropological research, The King of Bangkok is a story of migration to the city, distant families in the countryside, economic development eroding the land, and violent political protest. Ultimately, it is a story about contemporary Thailand and how the waves of history lift, engulf, and crash against ordinary people.

This beautifully illustrated graphic novel tells the history of contemporary Thailand through the life of a blind man who walks on the streets of the capital for the last time.

• Imprint: University of Toronto Press
• Published: October 2021
• Pages: 296

• epub: 9781487539160
• pdf: 9781487539153
• paperback: 9781487526412
• hardcover: 9781487508869

Claudio Sopranzetti is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Central European University. He is the author of Owners of the Map, winner of the 2019 Margaret Mead Award.

Sara Fabbri is an illustrator and editorial designer, currently working as Art Director for Linus, an Italian comics magazine.

Chiara Natalucci is an interpreter and translator of Russian and English, currently teaching English at a secondary school in Italy.

"The artwork is at least as important as text. Sara Fabbri’s colored line drawings give the tale an urgency that words themselves cannot convey."

Peter Gordon

Asian Review of Books

"Shades of hope and humor glimmer amid the forces of inequity and impunity depicted in this memorable book that homes in on the rich lives of ordinary people, those who the country's rulers are meant to serve."

David Hopkins

Nikkei Asia

"This book is a triumph."

Chris Baker

Bangkok Post

“Well informed and captivating. Much more than a didactic good-versus-evil tale, The King of Bangkok does justice to the complex people who animate a country that many of us would do well to know better.”

Rosalie Metro, University of Missouri-Columbia

Los Angeles Review of Books

"Thailand’s rural and migrant workers have been disenfranchised, left in the margins of state-sanctioned history and development. This acute and enlightening graphic novel provides a voice to the silenced and substance to their invisibilized, broken bodies."

Nicolas Verstappen, author of The Art of Thai Comics

"The King of Bangkok sheds light on the life of the Thai urban poor, migrants from rural areas who seek better opportunities in Thailand’s capital, whose lives were disrupted by political turmoil when they arose to demand democracy. They have been awakened as never before."

Thongchai Winichakul, author of Moments of Silence

"An expansive use of the graphic novel format to tell an important story about Thailand's rural and migrant workers. The innovative combination of narrative and images offers an exciting way to make ethnographic and historical research come alive. Inventive and illuminating."

Margaret Crawford, coauthor of Everyday Urbanism

"In this witty but tragic graphic novel, we see carefully orchestrated smiles mask the crushing burdens of deep and increasing economic and political inequality. We viscerally experience the injustices faced by Thailand’s rural poor as they seek paths out of penury in the unforgiving capital."

Michael Herzfeld, author of Siege of the Spirits

"An unresolved chapter in Thailand’s troubled history becomes vividly accessible through the perspective of one country-born newcomer to Bangkok. Insightfully written and inventively illustrated, The King of Bangkok makes hard truths and political questions individual and empathetic."

Paul Gravett, author of Comics Art and Mangasia