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Title: Portrait of peasant life in Thailand
Review: Politician and Other Stories is a collection of short stories written by the Thai author Khamsing Srinawk. Srinawk grew up in the rural northeast section of Thailand known as Esan; almost a synonym in his home country for poverty. Many of his stories center around life in an Esan village and the hardships that that entails. Other stories concern the experiences of Esan people in the city. Always, his theme is the friction between country and city, peasant and metropolitan folk. Srinawk captures the hardship, pain, and humiliation of being born poor in Thailand. Unlike other Thai writers of the bourgeouis class who romanticize the life of the poor, Srinawk, himself a peasant, paints his people in all their ignorance and selfishness. He never loses sight of what it means to be an Esan peasant, and simultaneously, what it means to be human.
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