A national bestseller for two years, the winner of the Governor General’s Award in 1993, and a New York Times Notable Travel Book of the Year in 2000, Touch the Dragon, A Thai Journal is a rare and dazzling exploration of a young writer’s brave new world. In Timothy Findley’s words, this book is “a splendid evocation of a place and people.”

Connelly is seventeen when she leaves Canada for Denchai to attend her last year of high school at a Thai school. Through energetic language and beautiful imagery, through humour and careful observation of the families, school friends and Buddhist rituals around her, Karen Connelly recreates life in a small village in northern Thailand. Not only does she illuminate another culture, she also shows how this strange, sometimes difficult place touched and changed her, allowing her to receive and understand a rich, common humanity.

Karen Connelly is a Canadian writer who divides her time between Canada and Europe. She is currently living in Greece, and has finished her third volume of poetry and a book of essays and stories about gypsies and travellers.

Awards

The Pat Lowther Memorial Award, 1990.

The Governor General's Award for NonFiction, 1993.