Perspectives

Literary period

“Only You Farang Are So Easy to Come and Leave” by Mai Nardone is a contemporary piece of fiction published in 2017. Like most contemporary fiction, the story has Postmodernist features. Postmodernism is a literary movement which started in the 1950s-60s and which is still used in literature today.

Many Postmodern writers have a preference for using first-person narrators who are not always reliable. The narrator from the story, Lara fits this pattern. Postmodern writers also like using dark humour and irony. Such devices are also used by Nardone: “the baht’s value falling into the graph’s underworld” (ll. 38-39); “Bangkok that year became a graveyard of office towers and housing projects.” (l. 118)

Postmodernist fiction can be realistic and focus on contemporary issues and using ordinary characters: “Only You Farang Are So Easy to Come a...