VORLESE-ENSEMBLE präsentiert FARANGS

In the organizer's words:

With the voices of the reading ensemble.

Words that travel. From Bangkok to New York, from longing to resistance. The story of Farang from the short story collection Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap tells of growing up in the shadow of tourism, of being a stranger in your own country. In his acclaimed debut, the young author, who was born in Chicago and grew up in Bangkok, tells of a Thailand we don't know like this: far removed from exotic stereotypes and very close to modern life.

For example, in the award-winning story Farangs, in which the young narrator falls in love with an American vacationer who, like all farangs - tourists - is only looking for elephants and sex in Thailand, but then surprisingly makes the acquaintance of a domestic pig named Clint Eastwood. Lapcharoensap always shows the reader what lies behind the apparent tourist paradise.

Lapcharoensap dares to show us a Thailand that has only the geographical borders and the dreamlike landscapes in common with what we think of as a vacation paradise. With great warmth, intelligence and humor, his stories prove what literature can do: Bringing us closer to a world and people whose lives we previously had only a vague idea of.