The Interpreter’s Journal: Stories from a Thai and Lao Interpreter by Benjawan Poomsan Becker might be more aptly entitled An Interpreter’s Journal because it describes the unique experience of one interpreter, from her relatively humble beginnings in Isaan (Thailand) and study abroad experience in Japan, to her trials, personal and professional, in her adopted homeland (the United States), marriage and divorce, business ventures and burn out, concluding with professional and personal success.

An annotated table of contents clearly sets out the book’s main themes: the author’s personal story; social commentary that focuses on “Thai-Western relationship stories”; and the author’s professional experience as an interpreter, which might be most interesting to aspiring or working interpreters. A quick tabulation of these annotations reveals that 45% of the book is devoted to personal memoir, and 23% relates to Thai-Western relationship stories, while the remaining third relates to interpretation. There is a fair amount of crossover between personal memoir and professional ...