Page 45 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL5

Chamaiporn Sangkrajang is the latest National Artist in Thai literature. She has long experience asa writer and literary critic, and to the younger generation of writers has been a mentor and kind-hearted older sister who offers advice on many aspects of their art and lives. She sat down with Elite+ to speak about the creative process and lesser known facets of her life.You were a regular columnist at Siam Rath weekly newspaper and worked closely with young writers, some of whom later became SEA Write award winners. Could you tell us about that?First of all, we have to accept that new young writers generally have no money. They have only the strong desire to write. At Siam Rath I wrote literary reviews and helmed a poetry column, “Breath of Poets”, that gave me a close relationship with young writers.Since we knew each other, I realized that some of them would only become better poets if they corrected some mistakes. Rewat Panpipat, for example, sent me his first poem when he was a conscript. The piece was commendable but a word in the second line was tuneless. I sent him a letter to tell how to correct it. He immediately sent back a thank you letter and never made such mistake again, and he won a SEA Write award in 2004 as the best poet in Southeast Asia. Many young poets and writers responded the way Rewat did.Besides being a literary critic, you selected poems for the magazine and were also a full-time government officer. You have worked like a teacher from the start, invited to lecture at many institutions.I am naturally a teacher without realizing it. My parents were teachers. When I was young I helped my‘I am naturally a teacher without realizing it. My parents were teachers. When I was young I helped my mother grade exams’mother grade exams. I could do that because I was two years their senior. I knew the answers and I knew who the smart students were. My spirit as a teacher started from that experience. At the Faculty of Arts I didn’t study the foundations of teaching. However, I am a person with the character of an elder sister. I love taking care of young friends as brothers and sisters. After I worked as a government officer for a while, a friend of mine, a lecturer in philosophy at Bangkok University,invited me to teach writing, reading and criticism. Another friend at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Communication Arts also invited me to teach literary criticism.I spent more time in teaching after I resigned from the government job. I taught at the Faculty of Commu- nication Arts for nearly 20 years. The only subject I coached was literary criticism. I quit teaching in universities because today’s students don’t seem to love writing. They loveElite+ 43