Boonlua

Boonlua was the pen name of Mom Luang Boonlua Debyasuvarn,[lower-alpha 1] née Kunchon (December 13, 1911 – June 7, 1982), a Thai writer, educator and civil servant.[1][2] She is considered to have been one of Thailand's most important educators during a crucial phase of that country's modernization.[3]

The youngest child of Chao Phraya Thewet, a high ranking official who had 32 children, and the only child of Mom Nual, a classical Thai dancer, she was born in Bangkok and was educated at a Catholic convent primary school there, at a convent secondary school in Penang and then earned her secondary school certificate at Saint Mary’s S.P.G School in Bangkok. She received a BA in Thai language and literature at Chulalongkorn University in 1936 and an MA in education from the University of Minnesota in 1950.[4][1][5]

After her graduation from Chulalongkorn University, she entered public service. She later became a teacher of literature and then an educational administrator in the Ministry of Education. After completing her master's degree which had been funded by a scholarship, she returned to Thailand. She retired from public service in 1970; around the same time, she married a doctor. Boonlua also began writing, producing five novels.[6][1] She published a number of essays on Thai literature and is thought to have established the basis for modern Thai literary criticism.[7] Some of Boonlua's work has been translated into English and incorporated into a number of comparative studies of contemporary Southeast Asian writing. She also translated English stories into Thai and Thai literature into English.[8]

In 1968, she was tasked with founding the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Sanam Chandra Palace Campus of Silpakorn University.[7]

Boonlua has been given the following honours:

Her sister M.L. Buppha Kunchon Nimmanhemin, also a novelist, wrote under the name Dō̜kmai Sot.[9]

Selected works[8][4]

  • Thutiyawiset, novel (1968)
  • Suratnari, novel (The Land of Women) (1972)
  • Sneh Plai Jwak, novella (The Enchanted Cooking Spoon)

Notes

  1. ↑ Mom Luang is a title that indicates that she was a great-great-grandchild of a king.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Historical Background". M.L. Boonlua. Silpakorn University.
  2. ↑ Kepner, Susan Fulop (1996). The Lioness in Bloom: Modern Thai Fiction about Women. p. 8. ISBN 0520915410.
  3. ↑ "Celebration of anniversaries in 2012". UNESCO.
  4. 1 2 Miller, Jane Eldridge (2001). Who's who in Contemporary Women's Writing. pp. 42–43. ISBN 0415159806.
  5. ↑ Kepner, Susan Fulop (2013). A Civilized Woman: M.L. Boonlua Debyasuvarn and the Thai Twentieth Century. ISBN 1630418188.
  6. ↑ "Intimate view of an extraordinary life". Bangkok Post. April 11, 2013.
  7. 1 2 Fry, Gerald W; Nieminen, Gayla S; Smith, Harold E (2013). Historical Dictionary of Thailand. pp. 64–65. ISBN 081087525X.
  8. 1 2 3 "Her Works". M.L. Boonlua. Silpakorn University.
  9. ↑ Fry, Gerald W; Nieminen, Gayla S; Smith, Harold E (2013). Historical Dictionary of Thailand. p. 138. ISBN 081087525X.
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