May 8, 2026

Reports Pasadena Now:

“The Outer Country — the title refers to what the Thai characters call America — traces two sisters, Manda and Siripon, separated as teenagers when their parents in the province of Phet Buri chose to send only one daughter abroad. The decision sparked a rivalry that persists across continents and decades. When Manda arrives in Los Angeles to help raise Siripon’s son, Ben, she grows alarmed at his behavior and arranges, with his father, for a monk to perform a ritual. The ceremony sets off years of illness and secrecy. As Ben grows into a young gay man, he must confront the scars of a past he barely remembers — a journey that carries him from a stucco bungalow in Los Angeles to Stanford.

"The path from laboratory bench to literary fiction was a long one for Malasarn. Born and raised in Southern California, he earned a PhD in biology from Caltech in 2007, studying bacterial arsenate respiration. While conducting postdoctoral research in Paris, according to his author biography, he decided to pursue writing more seriously. He left scientific research, went into university communications and returned to school, earning an MFA from Bennington College in 2020. He was a 2008 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow and has published short fiction in the Los Angeles Review, Rosebud, Opium Magazine and SmokeLong Quarterly. He co-founded the Granum Foundation, a nonprofit that supports writers finishing major literary projects, and hosts the podcast The Artist’s Statement.”