Literature and Storytelling Heritage in Bangkok
A visual guide from the Bangkok travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
The Neilson Hays Library on Surawong has been lending books since 1922 from a domed white reading room designed by an Italian architect, and the fans still turn slowly over the stacks while Silom traffic grinds outside the garden wall. Bangkok's storytelling stretches from that colonial-era library to hand-carved puppets worked by three operators at once, from painted epic cycles running the length of a palace gallery to a newer generation of independent bookshops working out of converted shophouses near the river.
Where the stories live
Neilson Hays in Bangrak combines a lending library with a small gallery and a garden cafe, and non-members can usually visit for a modest day fee. Baan Silapin, the artist's house on Khlong Bang Luang in Thonburi, stages hun lakhon lek puppet shows in a wooden courtyard beside the canal, typically in the afternoon. The mural gallery ringing Wat Phra Kaew holds the complete Ramakien, Thailand's version of the Ramayana, painted as continuous panels, and is the clearest place anywhere to read the epic as a picture sequence.
Reading the city now
Open House at Central Embassy is a bookshop, library and workspace under a timber canopy, and one of the better places to sit out an afternoon downpour. Passport Bookshop on Phra Sumen Road in Banglamphu and Candide Books at The Jam Factory in Khlong San stock Thai literature in translation alongside design and photography titles. For Thai writing that travels well in English, look for Prabda Yoon's short fiction and Chart Korbjitti's novels. Kinokuniya branches in Siam Paragon and EmQuartier carry the widest English-language selection in the city.