A Drunken Bee

Sunthorn Phu (1786–1855) is an unlikely figure through which to understand nineteenth-century Buddhism in Siam. Despite being described as a “drunken writer” by the court astrologer after his death, he is now the national poet of Thailand. Yet the majority of Sunthorn Phu’s literary accomplishments, including many of the nirat journeying poems translated in this volume, are scarcely available in English. In A Drunken Bee, Paul Lewis McBain argues that the irreverent, rebellious, and parodic voic