Prabda Yoon | |
|---|---|
 Prabda Yoon 2017 | |
| Native name | ปราบดา หยุ่น |
| Born | 2 August 1973 Bangkok, Thailand |
| Occupation |
|
| Language |
|
| Alma mater | Cooper Union |
| Notable awards |
|
| Relatives | Suthichai Yoon (father) |
| Website | |
| Official website | |
Prabda Yoon (Thai: ปราบดา หยุ่น; RTGS: Prapda Yun; born 2 August 1973 in Bangkok) is a Thai writer, novelist, filmmaker, artist, graphic designer, magazine editor, screenwriter, translator and media personality. His literary debut, Muang Moom Shak (City of Right Angles), a collection of five related stories about New York City, and the follow-up story collection, Kwam Na Ja Pen (Probability), both published in 2000, immediately turned him into "...the talk of the town..."[1] In 2002, Kwam Na Ja Pen won the S.E.A. Write Award, an award presented to accomplished Southeast Asian writers and poets.
Prabda has been prolific, having written over 20 books of fiction and nonfiction in ten years, designed over 100 book covers for many publishers and authors, translated a number of modern Western classics[1] such as Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Pnin, all of J. D. Salinger's books, Anthony Burgess's' A Clockwork Orange, and Karel Čapek's R.U.R. He has also written two acclaimed screenplays for Thai "new wave" filmmaker Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, "Last Life in the Universe" (2003) and "Invisible Waves" (2006). Prabda's literary work has been translated to Japanese and published in Japan regularly. He has exhibited his artworks (paintings, drawings, installations) in Thailand and Japan. He has also produced music and written songs with the bands Buahima and The Typhoon Band.
In 2004, Prabda founded Typhoon Studio, a small publishing house with two imprints, Typhoon Books and Sunday Afternoon. In 2012, he opened Bookmoby Readers' Cafe, a small bookshop at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. In 2015, Prabda wrote and directed his first feature film, "Motel Mist", which was selected to premiere and compete at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2016. The Sad Part Was, a collection of twelve short stories mostly taken from Prabda's Kwam Na Ja Pen[2] in English, translated from Thai by Mui Poopoksakul[3] (who won an English PEN Award for her translation), was published by the London-based independent publisher, Tilted Axis, and released in the UK on 3 March 2017. It is said to be the first translation of Thai fiction to be published in the UK. He received the 2021 Fukuoka Prize in Arts and Culture.[4]
