Why a Booktrail?
A Bangkok ladyboy goes undercover in the pondoks (huts made from corrugated iron) of Southern Thailand to gather intelligence on the insurgency taking place there.
Pure
What you need to know before your trail
Snooky/Ahmed is a Thai ladyboy who works as a film critic for the Siam New Sentinel newspaper. When police detect an insurgency happening in the area, they worry that their dreams of expansion and taking on a more global approach may not be far off. They need to infiltrate the cell and who better than someone they would never suspect?
So Snooky does what is expected of him, but also does a whole lot more. He’s quite a good terrorist himself and soon forgets why he’s there in the first place.
Travel Guide
The overall setting here is the clash of civilsations – the difference between Islam and the religions and regimes of the west. Having a thai ladyboy of islamic origin makes for a unique way of examining this topic for sure but then that’s the beauty of literature – allows you to learn about things in a unique and much more interesting way.
One part of the journey we see through Snooky’s eyes but can we trust a ladyboy turned Islamic militant and all that they see and do? We are of the belief that someone who refers to themselves in the 3rd person is not always to be trusted.
Thailand – provincial terrorist enclave in the Muslim south of Thailand is the main setting for the events of the book but as things unfold we get to see a little of Singapore, Mindanao in the Philippines and the surroundings enjoyed by an Oxford professor. Quite a series of locations and together with the mix of narrators is quite a unique literary journey.
We’ve never read about what it must be like to infiltrate a group in this way of this nature and with the resulting consequences. It is a fascinating way to see and to think about the challenges we still face in he world today.
Where Next?
