#sinxay

“Sinxay is a story which appears in slightly different versions with slightly different names in Mon, Thai, Lao and Khmer. The plot is a classic quest in which a hero prince is banished by the machinations  of evil siblings, travels long through forest and mountain, defeats many fearsome enemies, and is eventually celebrated in a great homecoming. Old versions were written in verse for recitation at festivals  Key scenes were popular with artists painting temple murals. During the nationalist era in the 1940s, the great littérateur of Laos, Maha Sila Viravong, began a prose version in a conscious attempt to create a Lao national literature. More recently, Sinxay has been celebrated as a kind of national hero in Laos. In 2005, Khon Kaen municipality adopted Sinxay as symbol of the city, and characters from the tale sprouted on the peaks of the city's lamp posts. 

Peter Whittlesey, an American photographer, and his Lao wife Baythong became fascinated by the Sinxay story and its modern revival. They spent  a decade translating the texts, visiting the sites, photographing the murals, and interviewing the monks, writers, performers and politicians involved in the Sinxay revival in Laos and Isan. The result  is this self-published book now available on Amazon.