The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth (translated by Kong Rithdee)
Veeraporn Nitiprapha
River Books: 2018
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When Veeraporn Nitiprapha’s SEA Write Award-winning The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth begins, Chareeya, the protagonist at the centre of the many losses that animate the novel, is a child just old enough to remember the sorrow of her parents’ ill-fated relationship. As Chareeya and her sister, Chalika, grow up in Nakhon Chai Si, not far from Bangkok, their parents begin to die from the suffocation of their lack of love for one another. The two sisters spend their days collecting animals both ordinary and spectacular and reading romance novels in which love is seamless, unlike the infidelity and unmatched desire that take first their father and then their mother.

The namesake of the novel first appears during their un-idyllic childhood when Chareeya looks for a blind earthworm in a labyrinth of its own making. As the novel unfolds, she continues to search for the lost earthworm, always just out of her reach, and each sister constructs her own impassable labyrinths. As the reader follows the sisters on their misadventures of love unreturned and life only partially lived, Veeraporn weaves a rich world full of music ranging from Brahms to Satie brought back by an uncle who lived in Japan, Chalika’s elaborate desserts and unending meals spanning the globe made by Chareeya for Pran, the sisters’ childhood playmate turned lover.

• Tags: Issue 15, Thailand, Tyrell Haberkorn, Veeraporn Nitiprapha