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A Thai-born, Thai-educated translator and his process of translating what some people have termed an untranslatable Thai novel, The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth (Saiduen Ta Bod Nai Khao Wongkot – ไส้เดือนตาบอดในเขาวงกต) by Veeraporn Nitiphrapha, into English.

Kong Rithdee retraces his thought process and revisits the challenges faced during the translation, and ponder the possibility, or impossibility, of being 100 percent faithful to the meaning, tone, and “colour” of the Thai prose, especially when the supple pliability of the Thai language is almost an antithesis to the rule of English. The intellectual challenge also comes from the fact that he is a Thai who speaks, thinks, and dreams in Thai. Is an act of translating equivalent to dreaming in another language?