Western Writers in Bangkok: Joseph Conrad
Polish sailor Teodor Korzeniowski first visited Bangkok in January 1888 when he was an officer in the British Merchant Navy. He had been sent to the Siamese capital from Seaman's Lodge in Singapore to take command of the Otago, a rusty barque whose captain had died suddenly and most of the crew had been hospitalized with malaria.
The filmed introduction of James Bond in 'Dr. No' in 1962 introduced Western cinema audiences to a world that stimulated their imagination and took them to exotic places that most could only dream of at the time: Jamaica, the Bahamas, Istanbul, Hong Kong and, of course, Thailand.
Western writers in Bangkok – the Bangkok noir scene
On this blog I have regularly discussed Western writers of all stripes who, for one reason or another, have or had a connection with the Thai capital. Many of them have meanwhile, contrary to their work, given up and are resting on their - no doubt well-deserved - laurels in the Panthenon of the Great and Not So Great Authors.
Western writers in Bangkok: Three British (former) spies
Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), John le Carré (°1931) and Ian Fleming (1908-1964) have in common, apart from being authors, that they all worked in one way or another for the British secret service or military security services, for a time in Bangkok and have written about this city and Thailand. I already devoted an article on Thailandblog to Ian Fleming and his creation James Bond a few days ago, so I will ignore that for now.
In 2009, an English-language manuscript for an Emmanuelle film that had never been shot suddenly surfaced in a well-known Antwerp antiquarian bookshop. You know, the sensational soft porn series produced in the XNUMXs that made Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel - briefly - world famous.
