Mom Luang Buppha Nimmanhemin née Kunchon[a] (1905 – 1963), writing under the pen name Dokmai Sot, was the most important Thai woman novelist in the period before World War II.[1]

หม่อมหลวงบุปผา นิมมานเหมินท์

The second youngest child of Chao Phraya Thewet, a high-ranking official who had 32 children, she was educated at home and at a Catholic convent primary school in Bangkok. When she was five years old, her mother Mom Malai left Chao Phraya Thewet to marry a Western foreigner; Dō̜kmai Sot remained with her father. Her earlier novels were romances but her later work, set in the world of the Thai elite, deals with moral issues in a changing world, based on Buddhist values. In her view, a person's quality was not measured by their social status but by their morality as reflected in their behaviour. She also wrote a number of short stories which are less known than her novels.[1][2][3]

In 1954, she married the Thai politician Sukich Nimmanhemin.[1]

Her sister Boonlua Kunchon Thepyasuwan, also a novelist, wrote under the name Boonlua.[2]

Selected works

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  • Phu Di (A person of good quality), novel (1938)

Notes

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  1. ^ Mom Luang is a title that indicates that she was a great-great-grandchild of a king.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Fry, Gerald W; Nieminen, Gayla S; Smith, Harold E (2013). Historical Dictionary of Thailand. p. 138. ISBN 978-0810875258.
  2. ^ a b Kepner, Susan Fulop (1996). The Lioness in Bloom: Modern Thai Fiction about Women. pp. 81–83. ISBN 0520915410.
  3. ^ Kepner, Susan Fulop (2013). A Civilized Woman: M.L. Boonlua Debyasuvarn and the Thai Twentieth Century. ISBN 978-1630418182.