The Demon King And the Hermit’s Riddle

Totsakan The Demon King

and The Hermit’s Riddle

Published in Thai

and English

by River Books

THE VIDEO: Imagination on top of imagination

View video on YouTube

Short-listed for the Young Adult category of the Siam Book Awards 2025

More photos

A Ramayana-inspired fantasy fiction that sparkles with originality while nodding to the genre classics such as Narnia and Harry Potter, Totsakan ingeniously breathes a new, exciting life into the old tale, dusting off its aura of antiquity and giving young readers a parent-proof reason to stay up all night. – Kong Rithdee, cultural critic, writer and translator

The story

Catt is a 14-year-old girl from Bangkok with exceptional martial arts skills. She and a nerdish friend, Rawin, are on a school visit to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The temple’s walls house a mural of more than 170 frames depicting the epic poem called The Ramakien, the Thai version of the ancient Hindu Ramayana myth.

Rawin is dragged into one of the paintings. Catt follows. There they are told they are the Destined Ones called to help defeat the demon villain Totsakan, a sort of fallen angel. Wanting to go home, they consult a sage who tells them: “You cannot go home until you have defeated the evil one but you cannot defeat the evil one unless you go home.” They do not understand what this means until near the end.

They become entangled in the complex Ramakien plot as the occasionally reluctant allies of Prince Ram, whose wife Sida has been abducted by Totsakan, and Ram’s army led by the wily monkey Hanuman. Catt performs spectacular feats of skill and bravery in several battles. Rawin teams up with a small boy from another Thai myth, JaoJuk, who has magical powers.

The Demon King decides he has to kill them before they kill him. But Catt and Rawin discover to their horror that the Demon King imperils not only the world they have been trapped in, but their own as well. There is only one way they can fulfill their destiny.

The characters

The two main characters, Catt and Rawin, are from modern Thailand. The others are drawn from the ancient epic and the imagination of the authors and their children

Rawin and Catt

Totsakan

Prince Ram

Sida

Rawin and Catt are 14 and have been friends since they were tiny. She has near superpower martial arts skills. He is a bit nerdish and has a sharp mind. They find themselves in the Ramakien epic with no way home until they help defeat the evil Demon King.

Totsakan is a ‘fallen angel’ who brings moral darkness to the Universe. He abducts Sida, wife of Prince Ram, and won’t give her up despite endless wars between his demon army and the monkey army assisted by Catt, Rawin, and JaoJuk.

Prince Ram is the incarnation of the god Narai. He and his wife Sida are sent into exile where Sida is abducted by the Demon King Totsakan. Ram wins the loyalty of the monkey Hanuman whose army helps Ram fight to rescue Sida.

Sida is the incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi. She is married to Prince Ram. While in exile with Ram she is abducted by Totsakan and held captive in the demon capital Langka. She defies Totsakan’s demands on her, awaiting rescue.

Hanuman

Sukreep

JaoJuk

Meeya and Sayola

Hanuman is the cleverest monkey in the world. He has a range of powers which he uses to great effect. But sometimes he oversteps the mark and brings trouble upon himself and others. He is a brilliant fighter and loyal servant of Prince Ram.

Sukreep is Hanuman’s uncle, a kindly soul with a sad history that led to his exile from the kingdom he once ruled with his brother. He is called upon to bring Catt and Rawin to the Ramakien world and to guide them with compassion.

JaoJuk is a small boy who can perform great magic. He teams up with Rawin to make unimaginable things happen, often just in time. He’s actually from another Thai myth. He doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t miss much either.

Meeya and Sayola are twin brother and sister who are cursed and turned into a swan and a monkey. They help Catt and Rawin, saving their lives more than once. Only when the Demon King is slain is the curse lifted.

The fabulous Ramakien myth

Visitors to Thailand find themselves immersed in a culture bursting with gods, demons, giants and mythical beasts. They tower over you as they ominously guard doorways, they grin at you from intricate carvings, they bedazzle you from golden silk threads and dance around you from beautifully painted landscapes.

The deeply evocative tale called The Ramakien is of truly epic proportions. The only known complete version of the Ramakien was written under King Rama I in 1804. There is evidence of the epic being performed in dances and shadow puppet theatres as far back as the 13th century.

The legend is derived from the Ramayana, an ancient tale from South Asia. Written more than 2,000 years ago by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki, the Ramayana is the story of the Hindu god Vishnu and his 7th incarnation as Rama, the prince and king of Ayodhya (called Prince Ram of Ayutthaya in the Thai rendition).

The main story begins with the births of Ram and his wife Sida. Ram proves himself to be the perfect son and perfect husband, but before he can become king, he is forced to renounce his title and leave Ayutthaya. For 14 years the royal couple live in exile in the magical Himapan Forest. Sida is abducted by Totsakan, the Demon King. With the help of the monkey general Hanuman and his army, Rama rescues Sida.

Thanks to thailandexplorer.com

The authors

Woranuj Maneeerungsee (or ‘Laem’ as everyone knows her) and Graham Watts are former journalists who turned their writing skills to creating this story inspired by their bilingual twin children, Luke and Maleeya. They use the pen name Tamlin Bea because it is easy to pronounce in both English and Thai.

Laem grew up in a large family in Bangkok and did well academically. She graduated in history from Thammasat University and went on to work as a reporter, first on Manager newspaper and then the Bangkok Post.

Graham grew up in South Africa and studied journalism and political philosophy before going to graduate school in the United States. He was a reporter and editor on South African newspapers before moving to the UK where he worked for more than two decades as an editor on the Financial Times.

When the twins began to read independently, Laem and Graham wanted them to be able to read something that reflected their Thai side. The twins read plenty of English books, but nothing in which they could see themselves and the Thai half of their bilingual and bi-cultural lives.

Why don’t we write one ourselves? they all asked, first as just a joke. But it wasn’t until the family moved to England and Covid brought lockdown that work actually began on the book.

The inspiration

They just had to be in the book, one way or another. They were, after all, the reason for it. Dad loved Maleeya’s bold self-confidence and Mum adored Luke’s way of getting on in the world by using his brain, not his braun. So Catt, the brave girl who wields her martial arts skills in the battle to defeat the evil Demon King, is based on Maleeya (though Maleeya isn’t actually a physical fighter). And Rawin, the canny boy who always seems to have a brainy solution to the many problems they run into, is based on Luke.

Maleeya and Luke are twins. They were born at the Bangkok Nursing Home in 2009 and spent the first 10 years of their lives in a pleasant condo in Yannawa, in the south of the city. They started their education at a modest bilingual school nearby where nearly all the children were Thai. At home they spoke Thai to their mum and English to their dad and a mixture to the many kids they played with.

At bedtime Mum and Dad took turns reading picture books to them, she in Thai, he in English. When they began to read independently they chose English books because they weren’t able to find anything in Thai that they could relate to. Mum and Dad wanted them to read something that was about the Thai half of their lives since they wanted the twins not only to be bilingual but also ‘bicultural’. And so the book was born.

The publisher

River Books Publishing was founded over 30 years ago by Narisa Chakrabongse, an author and a co-author of many books and illustrated guides on history, art and culture of Thailand and Southeast Asia. She is the only daughter of the late Prince Chula Chakrabongse, and the only granddaughter of Prince Chakrabongse and his Ukrainian wife Katerina Desnitskaya, and a great-granddaughter of King Rama V the Great. One of her most significant works is "Katya and the Prince of Siam" about the love of the Siamese Prince and a Ukrainian girl against a rich historical background of the beginning of the 20th century.

Media

แกรห์ม&แหลม

ความคิดคู่รักเจ้าของ Tosakan: The Demon King and The Hermit’s Riddle นิยายรามเกียรติ์แนวใหม่ที่ชวนตั้งคำถามเรื่องคุณธรรม

“If you loved Harry Potter or Narnia, this book is perfect for you”

แก้ปัญหาใหญ่ เด็กไทยอ่านไม่ออก (8 minute video in Thai)

Thailand ranked ‘very low’ in English proficiency index

Can Reading Really Improve Your Life?

Most educational research now suggests that reading for pleasure is strongly linked to a child’s future outcome, educational success, and even wellbeing. But the latest studies also show that reading for pleasure is at its lowest level for twenty years.

More than half of UK kids don’t enjoy reading in their spare time

Children are more likely to read if they have access to books they feel represent them

Maleeya performs a song that connects with the story

From Beauty and the Beast, this song captures the heartache Totsakan must feel when he loses Sida. Even though he is the Evil One in the story, Maleeya believes we need to understand the feelings and motivation of all the characters to really appreciate the story