A Literary Event

Colin Cotterill at the book event at COPE. Yes, those are prosthetic limbs hanging behind him. Some of them are even made of bomb casings. Oh, the sad, sad irony.



I had never heard of Coliln Cotterill until I arrived in Laos. I was then introduced to his novel, The Coroner's Lunch, and am now a big fan. Colin is a native of Britain, with an Australian passport who spent 4 years in Laos in the late 1970s who now lives in Thailand. He is writing a series of novels set in Lao PDR in 1975 just after the Pathet Lao came to power. They feature an elderly surgeon who is forced from retirement to serve as the national coroner of Laos. He comes to discover that he is the host for Yeh Ming, an ancient Hmong shaman, and consequently has unusual interactions with the recently deceased people he examines. These interactions lead him to be a sort of amateur detective into these mysterious deaths. They are set in Vientiane with street names and sites I pass every day. They involve a fair amount of satire and do not always cast the Party in glowing terms but have not been banned. They also have a fair amount of animism which confused me at first. I read all 5 in the series to date in the first 2 months I was here and am already looking forward to number 6 which will be published next August.

It was exciting, therefore, to meet the author this past week. He returns several times a year to do research for the novels and has become an advocate for several charities around the country. His novels have recently been published in Lao and he is donating all the proceeds to three of these charities, including COPE. COPE is located at the National Rehabilitation Hospital and helps provide prosthetics and other adaptive equipment to disabled Laos. Many of their patients are victims of previously unexploded ordinances which remain a huge problem in this country which is the most bombed in history. He gave a presentation and signed books at COPE as well as gave a short reading from his 6th book. I had never been to such an event, and it was fun to meet the author of the books I enjoy so much, right in the city where they are set.