Kukrit Pramoj

Kukrit Pramoj wrote the great Thai novel of the twentieth century and served as prime minister of Thailand, which is an unusual pair of achievements. He was a descendant of King Rama II, educated at Trent College and Oxford, and worked as a banker before founding the newspaper Siam Rath in 1950 and editing it for decades. Si Phaendin - Four Reigns - was serialised there in 1953. It follows a woman named Phloi from her childhood in the inner palace under Rama V through the reigns of three more kings to the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932 and beyond, and it is the book through which most Thais encounter the period; it is also a deeply royalist account, and the 1932 revolution appears in it as a loss. He acted in film, playing the prime minister of a fictional Asian country opposite Marlon Brando in The Ugly American in 1963, some years before holding the office in fact. He was prime minister from 1975 to 1976, in the brief democratic opening between two periods of military rule, and used it to establish relations with the People's Republic of China and to get the remaining American forces out of Thailand. His government fell, and the massacre at Thammasat University followed months later. He was named a national artist in 1985. His brother Seni Pramoj was also prime minister, twice, which makes them the only pair of brothers to have held the office. He built a traditional Thai house in Bangkok that is now a museum. Four Reigns has been adapted for television, film and the stage repeatedly, and its politics are argued about every time.

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