A broken homecoming for a popular poet

The poet Zakariya Amataya, who grew up in a province of Thailand now splintered by violence over ethnic and religious differences, manages to bridge the divide with the universality of his verse A Muslim poet from a largely Buddhist district, Amataya's background is just one of the many attributes that sets him and his work apart:

Next month, Mr. Zakariya will be formally awarded the region’s top writing prize, honoring his first published book of poetry. The prize, the Southeast Asian Writers Award, is an unusual achievement for the son of illiterate farmers. Also remarkable is that the language of Mr. Zakariya’s poetry, Thai, is not his mother tongue. He grew up speaking a dialect of Malay spoken by the majority of people living in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces along the border with Malaysia. These ethnic and linguistic differences and a feeling among Malays of cultural domination by the Thais are the kindling of the insurgency.

Though he spent most of his adult life in Bangkok,  Amataya traveled to his home province after winning the Southeast Asian Writers Award. You can read more about his journey to Thailand's volatile "deep south" in the New York Times.

An excerpt from Amataya's poetry:

Oh, father, please put out the fire that is burning our land.
Father, take all the water buckets we have and pour them
On those cherry seeds so that they might grow back
From the ashes and remains of the city.
Butterflies will flutter across our forests again.
And if water won’t put out the roaring fire,
Father, take my tears.