In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 1954
- Birthplace
- Samut Sakhon, Thailand
- Country
- Thailand
- Nationality
- Not independently established
- Known for
- The Judgment and stories of working lives
- English edition
- 1995: translation, editing and introduction separately credited
Why this life matters
His fiction turns judgement into a narrative problem: readers must consider how a confident opinion can rest on an incomplete account of another person.
Timeline
Key moments
A novel appears
The Judgment is published.
National recognition
Named a National Artist.
Learning a trade and finding a literary voice
Born in Samut Sakhon, Chart spent part of his education as a temple boy and later attended an art polytechnic. He made women’s leather bags while working toward a composition diploma. The established writer Seni Saowaphong encouraged his literary ambitions.
Practical work and literary training developed alongside each other. This background helps place the maker of fiction among people earning a living, rather than presenting writing as a career that began fully formed.
Sources for this section: [3]
Fiction about the cost of judgement
The Judgment appeared in 1981. Mad Dogs & Co., published in 1988, extended a body of fiction concerned with working-class experience. Chart became a National Artist in 2004 and received the S.E.A. Write Award twice.
In a Citylife interview, he recalled discovering that a writer he had dismissed was supporting a family. The reversal helped prompt his interest in mistaken judgement. He described gossip and ignorance as human problems that could occur beyond Thailand.
An English edition with several contributors
Chulalongkorn University’s record of the 1995 English edition of The Judgment names Phongdeit Jiangphatthanarkit as translator and Marcel Barang as editor and introducer. These are distinct contributions to the edition’s presentation.
The distinction matters to a reader encountering the novel in English. Authorship identifies the maker of the fiction, while the responsibility statement records other people whose work made that particular edition available.
Sources for this section: [2]
Continuing to test the form
A later Words Without Borders profile describes his experiment with a novel made from Facebook exchanges. His career thus includes both established print fiction and an attempt to work through a newer communication form.
Across these forms, the durable question is how a story assembles a person from partial encounters. The interview offers one account of his creative motivation; it does not reduce every fictional event to something that happened to its author.
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about Chart Korbjitti
- Who translated the catalogued English edition?
- The 1995 record credits Phongdeit Jiangphatthanarkit; Marcel Barang edited and introduced it.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Pira Sudham
Compare a writer who chose English for his own fiction.
- Khamsing Srinawk
Read another career connecting literary work and ordinary rural lives.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. Words Without BordersChart Korbjitti: contributor biography
Not the novels or the Facebook experiment itself.
- 2. Chulalongkorn University LibraryThe judgment: 1995 edition record
Catalog only; no 287-page novel read.
- 3. Kyoto Review of Southeast AsiaThai literary trends: Chart Kobjitti section
Not the complete article or its cited literary works.
- 4. Chiang Mai CitylifeWho Are We to Judge? An Interview with Chart Korbjitti
Interview recollection, not independent proof of the incident described.