ARB podcast with Lawrence Osborne, author of “The Glass Kingdom”

Lawrence Osborne

Sarah Mullins, an American woman, arrives at “The Kingdom”: a fading luxury apartment complex in Bangkok. She is there to lay low, after passing over forged collectors’ items in Hong Kong. She meets the other residents of the Kingdom, including the energetic, yet mysterious Mali. This starts an unfolding story set amidst the fictional backdrop of growing protests, as both the Kingdom’s expatriate tenants and the local Thai staff evaluate what will happen next.

 The Glass Kingdom, Lawrence Osborne (Hogarth, August 2020)
The Glass Kingdom, Lawrence Osborne (Hogarth, August 2020)

Novelist Lawrence Osborne tells this story in his new novel The Glass Kingdom. In this interview, ARB podcast host Nicholas Gordon talks to Osborne about his novel, the flawed nature of his characters, and how the choice of a Bangkok apartment complex in a fictional period of Thai social unrest has some uncanny similarities to our present day. They also talk about his research process when it comes to writing a new book.

Osborne is a writer and novelist, currently residing in Bangkok, whose works like The Forgiven, The Ballad of a Small Player and Hunters in the Dark were published to rave reviews and featured on numerous “best-of” lists.