ALL THIRTEEN comes out tomorrow and I want to take a moment to talk about italics, POV, and who gets to be at the center of the story.

This is from the scene (made world-famous by that helmet-cam video) when the British rescue divers finally locate the missing boys in the cave.

I chose to write this scene from the boys’ perspective, which means that their thoughts and interiority would be in Thai. But when the boys speak with the British divers, they converse in English (since the divers aren’t bilingual). How to handle that?

As many of you know, italics have been used in literature for centuries to set off or highlight non-English words. But the effect can be othering and serves to center a Western, English-speaking perspective. In ALL THIRTEEN, I really tried my best to center the Thai perspective.

And so it seemed to me that the only way to construct this scene in the book would be to put the English words in italics. This wasn’t an easy decision AT ALL. I got questions from copyeditors. I questioned myself. After all, this is not the way it’s typically done.

This is where I have to thank my BIPOC colleagues for encouraging me to do the right thing for the book. They gave me confidence when I needed it most. And you better believe I watched this video by @djolder:

“The purpose of language is to communicate clearly…”

I felt the best way to clearly communicate the facts, the emotions, the confusion, the elation of this moment in the cave was to offset the English words by italicizing. I think we made the right decision, but I’m eager to hear your thoughts if you have read the book!

There is still one day left to pre-order ALL THIRTEEN. I'll sign all the copies ordered through my local indie @BookPeople https://soontornvat.com/books/all-thirteen/