"Taksin, le roi des rizieres" ("Taksin, King of the Rice Fields") is the second novel by French author Claire Keefe-Fox and has been translated into Thai by Kluaymai Keawsonthi, who works at the Thai Embassy in Paris and is a friend of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.

Keefe-Fox works at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an interpreter for President Jacques Chirac.

Her new book has not yet been released in France, but her first novel, "Le ministre des moussons" ("Minister of Monsoons", 1998), which focuses on Constantine Phaulkon, was a success with French readers.

It took five years for Keefe-Fox to research "Taksin, le roi des rizieres".

"The main sources were French PhD researchers specialising in Siamese history, the French translation of the Chronicle of Ayutthaya and also the French religious archives, because French missionaries throughout the period wrote to Paris detailing their lives while Ayutthaya was underseige and afterwards, when they came back and met King Taksin," Keefe-Fox said.

Keefe-Fox's imagination has created a fictional character, Matthieu Charles de Cavier, as a narrator to tell the French reader something about the country

as if through the eyes of a compatriot.

The story is set during the fall of Ayutthaya and tells how Taksin recovers Siamese sovereignty from Burma, makes himself king, reorganises the economy and education and eventually falls from power.

Keefe-Fox draws a comparison with the king of France, Napoleon Bonaparte.

She says there are similarities that French readers will be able to relate to.

Both figures were ordinary folk, but through hard work built substantial empires.

The author thinks the book will not be controversial to Thais because there is nothing offensive in it as a historical novel.

Kupluthai Pungkanon

 The Nation