Career
His literary debut, Muang Moom Shak (City of Right Angles), a collection of five related stories about New York City, and the follow-up story collection, Kwam Na Ja Pen (Probability), both published in 2000, immediately turned him into a sensation of contemporary Thai literature. He is among the most well known and influential of Thai writers. Prabda has been prolific, having written over 20 books of fiction and nonfiction in ten years, designed over 100 book covers for many publishers and authors, translated a number of modern western classics such as Juris Doctor Salinger"s The Catcher in the Rye and Nine Stories, Anthony Burgess" A Clockwork Orange, and Karel Capek"s R.U.R. He has also written two acclaimed screenplays for Thai "new wave" filmmaker Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, "Last Life in the Universe" (2003) and "Invisible Waves" (2006).
Prabda"s literary work has been translated to Japanese and published in Japan regularly.
He has exhibited his artworks (paintings, drawings, installations) in Thailand and Japan. He has also produced music and written songs with the bands Buahima and The Typhoon Band, respectively.
In 2004, Prabda founded Typhoon Studio, a small publishing house with two imprints, Typhoon Books and Sunday Afternoon. In 2012, he opened Bookmoby Readers" Cafe, a small bookshop at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, along with its online counterpart at www.bookmoby.com.
Prabda is the son of well known media personality Suthichai Sae-Yoon, cofounder of The Nation newspaper and current Chief Executive Officer of Nation Multimedia Group, and former magazine editor and novelist Nantawan Sae-Yoon, both living in Bangkok, Thailand.
He has one younger sister, Shimboon "Kit" Yoon, who lives with her family in the United States. Prabda completed his elementary school education in Bangkok, then attended high school at the Cambridge School of Weston in Weston, Massachusetts. He went to Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, New York City, for two years, majoring in Communication Design, and four more year at the Cooper Union, where he studied graphic design under Dan Friedman and Milton Glaser, film with Robert Breer, graduating from Cooper Union in 1997. Prabda returned to Thailand in 1998 for military service.