by S. P. Somtow (Thailand)
Paperback ISBN: 9780980014945
Pages: 356

Set in Bangkok in 1963, Jasmine Nights follows a twelve-year-old boy known as Little Frog — who insists on speaking only English, eating only English food, and answering to the name Justin — as he grows up on the family estate in the care of three eccentric aristocratic aunts. When Virgil, a Black American boy, becomes his treehouse companion, Justin’s self-contained world of books and imagination opens onto something larger: questions of race, identity, tradition, and what it means to belong.

Blending comedy, magic realism, and cultural observation, the novel is a richly inventive portrait of a society — and a childhood — in transition.

“Fragrant and very funny … like childhood, one finds that Jasmine Nights is hard to leave behind.” — The Guardian

“Charming, elegant and funny … a novel like no other and a joy to read.” — Cosmopolitan

“A funny and memorable book, light-heartedly taking on big themes.” — Daily Telegraph

“A vivid coming-of-age story.” — Publishers Weekly

About the author

S. P. Somtow (Somtow Sucharitkul) was born in Bangkok, grew up in Europe, and was educated at Eton and Cambridge. He has written across literary fiction, fantasy, horror, and science fiction — his novel Vampire Junction was voted one of the forty greatest horror novels of all time by the Horror Writers’ Association — and won the World Fantasy Award for his novella The Bird Catcher. Jasmine Nights, widely regarded as his most personal work, was first serialised in the Bangkok Post before publication in book form. In recent decades he has returned to Thailand, where he founded Bangkok’s first international opera company and conducts the Siam Philharmonic.

Buy this book via your neighborhood English bookstore in Germany.