Alum Spotlight

Prabda Yoon ’92 is a Thai writer, musician, filmmaker, and visual artist. Born in Thailand, Prabda attended CSW as an international student and went on to study graphic design, painting, and experimental filmmaking at Cooper Union.

He is the author of numerous books and story collections, including Kwam Na Ja Pen (Probability, 2000) which earned him the S.E.A. Write Award. He is most known for The Sad Part Was (Tilted Axis Press, 2017) and Moving Parts (Tilted Axis Press, 2018), collections of short stories originally written in Thai and translated to English by Mui Poopoksakul. Both won the PEN Translates! Award. In addition, Prabda has translated a number of well-known English-language works into Thai, including The Catcher in the Rye, A Clockwork Orange, and Lolita. His first feature film, Motel Mist, was selected to premiere and compete for the Hivos Tiger Awards at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2016. His second film, Someone from Nowhere, premiered and competed in the Asian Future section at the 30th Tokyo International Film Festival in 2017. Prabda is also the showrunner, executive producer and co-writer of Netflix’s Thai series Bangkok Breaking, released in 2021.

Tell us about your experience at The Cambridge School of Weston. What were you like as a student and how has your time here shaped you as an adult?

Coming from Thailand at 15 years old, CSW was literally a new world for me. It was exciting as well as overwhelming. My English skills were limited, and I struggled academically. But because of the module system and because of the great support from the teachers, I didn’t feel handicapped the way I used to at previous schools. Everything about CSW felt progressive and different, and I felt that it was the kind of environment in which I belonged. That was hugely meaningful because I’d never felt that way anywhere. So many teachers, dorm parents, and friends opened new windows for me in so many ways. So many artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers who still inspire my works today I discovered at CSW, either through teachers and friends or in the library. It was a tremendous time. I don’t know if it’s the same now, but I’ve always felt that to have gone to CSW was such a unique experience that there was a special bond among students. Of course, schools aren’t everything in a person’s life, but I can say for certain that I started to discover myself at CSW, and the environment there was a big part of it.

As an artist, you have experimented with so many different mediums — literature, film, music, design. How do you decide what you want to do next?

I think most artists begin somewhere specific. In my case, it was literature, even though I was already interested in many other mediums from the start. I think literature feels very personal to readers because when one is reading it feels as if one is in an intimate conversation with the material, and often readers admire writers of the books they like for that reason. I was lucky to have had kind and supportive readers. They were the ones who opened doors to the other mediums for me. Over the years, opportunities presented themselves because of my writings.

I decide what to do next according to my current fascination or hunger for more knowledge, but that doesn’t mean I always get to do what I want to do. It may seem as if I can pick and choose projects, but actually it’s often the other way around. I have been tremendously lucky to have had the opportunities to carry out my experiments in so many ways.

If someone is new to your work, where do you suggest they start?

Probably the short story collection The Sad Part Was. It’s a bit strange for me to suggest that because personally I see a different me in those stories, since they were written so long ago. But I think it’s fair to say that many of the stories in that book made me well-known in Thailand, and to a large extent they formed a particular perception of me and my work in the public eye.

What drives you to create the work that you do?

My stubborn desire to know more, make more, see more, discover new things.

What steps do you take to get into the creative mindset?

Drink good coffee and be free from daily chores. The coffee part is not that hard but often life interferes.