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Has anybody read "Jasmine Nights" by S P Somtow?

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Ophelia

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Has anybody read "Jasmine Nights" by S P Somtow?

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I've found a recommendation for this and the theme is intriguing-- but it was published in 1963 and only available second-hand now.

I can imagine why I would have wanted a world in English at that age but there wouldn't be a book in my story.

I've asked Ralph because it looked that the sort of book he might enjoy, but he hasn't read it.

Here are some reviews:


Jasmine Nights by S. P. Somtow

A Quirky Bangkok Novel by the J. D. Salinger of Siam
"Intelligent, energetic, humane, engaging, humorous, delicate, and beautiful." Louis de Bernieres.

At twelve years old, Little Frog has a richly fantastic and sustaining inner life. It is 1963, his parents have disappeared, and he lives with his maiden aunts, known affectionately as the Three Fates, on a family estate in Bangkok. But, fed by a steam of books and accompanied by his pet chameleon, Little Frog refuses to accept that he is Thai; eats English food; speaks only English; and answers to the name Justin.
Into Justin's eclectically fashioned, whirling fantasy world steps Virgil, a black American boy, and together they embark on a glorious spree of magic and growing up, in which sex, adult confusions, comedy, farce, politics, and the voices of the East and West are fused into a voyage of exhilarating discovery."

"[A] vibrant coming-of-age novel." The Sunday Times.

"It is 1963. Twelve-year-old Justin has been entrusted to the care of three maiden aunts, an ancient great-great-grandmother, and a wicked uncle, on an exotic and protected estate. Breaking through the superficialities of family tradition with his own restless imagination as his guide, the boy tumbles through a year of magic and discovery, after which nothing will ever be quite the same. Jasmine Nights is about the American civil rights movement, the Kennedy assassination, growing up in the sixties, the Thai aristocracy, the sexual eccentricities of relatives, and the meaning of friendship. Justin's search for his place in the modern world takes him far beyond his home, on an uproarious and heartrending inner journey through other lands and centuries. His adventure is a joyous testament to the resiliency and implicit goodness of the human spirit."

Fantasticfiction.co.uk
Ophelia.
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