Pitchaya Sudbanthad is the author of Bangkok Wakes to Rain, which was selected as a best book of the year by The New York Times and The Washington Post. The novel has been hailed as “ambitious and sweeping” (Esquire) and “a remarkable debut” (Financial Times) with a narrative that “recreates the experience of living in Thailand’s aqueous climate so viscerally that you can feel the water rising around your ankles” (Washington Post). The novel has been named finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the Chautauqua Prize, the Casa delle Letterature Bridge Book Prize, and the Edward Stanford Award. 

Sudbanthad has been honored with fellowships from Civitella Ranieri, MacDowell, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He has taught and lectured in several settings, including the A.K. Smith Scholars Series at Trinity College and sessions with One Story and StoryStudio, and has been on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Environment Writers’ Conference. He has been a featured writer at several cultural festivals around the world, with appearances in Thailand, France, Indonesia, and Australia. His work has appeared in several publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, Newsweek, Guernica, Orion, and The Morning News. Born in Bangkok, he grew up in Saudi Arabia and the American South, and has been an aficionado of a number of cafes in New York City.