THE LILY FESTIVAL IN BANGKOK - THE INTERPLAY OF YURI/GIRLS LOVE, BOOK CULTURE, AND SAPPHIC LITERARY COMMUNITIES - Research Article

Aug 28, 2026

Uploaded by Mali

Since the late 2010s, Yuri or Girls Love (GL)—a female homoerotic romance genre originating in Japan—has expanded rapidly in Thailand and across Asia. Yet the cultural and community role of literary festivals for GL remains insufficiently explored. This study investigates the Lily Festival in Bangkok (running since 2018) as a contested space where digital-platform and commercial-publisher imperatives intersect with gender-driven agendas led by sapphic organizers, writers, and publishers. Using feminist book history, critical event studies, and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, the research traces its evolution into a marketplace and sanctuary for sapphic literary communities.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Thai BL activism and the Pride Forum (2025)

Growth of BL and expansion to Thai Yuri/GL (2020s-2024)

The Lily Festival and its emergence (2018- )

Scholarship gaps on Yuri/GL-focused events

Research Article Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Studies [https://so02.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/hasss](https://so02.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/hasss) ISSN (Online): 2630-0079 THE LILY FESTIVAL IN BANGKOK: THE INTERPLAY OF YURI/ GIRLS LOVE, BOOK CULTURE, AND SAPPHIC LITERARY COMMUNITIES Pannaphat Phumithammarat 1 and Natthanai Prasannam2* 1 Center for Advanced Studies in the Applied Humanities and Social Sciences, Kasetsart University Institute for Advanced Studies, Thailand 2 Center for the Study of Global Boys Love and Queer Cultures, Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Thailand *Corresponding author: Natthanai Prasannam natthanai.p@ku.th Received: 16 February 2026 Revised: 16 June 2026 Accepted: 16 June 2026 Published: 3 August 2026 Citation: Phumithammarat, P., & Prasannam, N. (2026). The Lily Festival in Bangkok: The interplay of Yuri/Girls Love, book culture, and sapphic literary communities. Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Studies, 26(2), 507–519. [https://doi.org/10.69598/](https://doi.org/10.69598/)[ ](https://doi.org/10.69598/)hasss.26.2.284586 ABSTRACT Since the late 2010s, the female homoerotic romance genre known as Yuri or Girls Love (hereafter GL), which originated in Japan, has been experiencing significant growth in Thailand and the broader Asian region. Despite this expansion, the role of literary festivals in sustaining GL’s cultural and community dimensions remains underexplored. This research examines the Lily Festival in Bangkok, which has run since 2018, as a contested terrain where the economic imperatives of digital platforms and commercial publishers intersect with gender-as-agenda driven by sapphic organizers, writers, and publishers. Drawing on feminist book history and critical event studies, and employing indepth interviews with festival organizers, publishers, writers, illustrators, GL series production company representatives, and stars, this study traces the festival’s evolution from a subcultural Comic Market-style event into a literary festival. The findings demonstrate that this transformation is not merely commercial but ideological: the festival functions as both a marketplace and a sanctuary, where sapphic literary communities are built and sustained through the very contestation between capitalist platforms and queer publishers. This study contributes to the underrepresented scholarship on gender and contemporary book culture in Southeast Asia, highlighting the Lily Festival as a dynamic site where literary production, queer activism, and the Thai GL ecosystem are intertwined. Keywords: Girls Love; literary festival; feminist book history; sapphic; Thai literature 1. INTRODUCTION The literary industry met activism atthe Bangkok Pride Festival 2025, guided by Thailand’s soft power policy and its creative industries. The Bangkok Pride Forum was organized as an extension of the Pride Parade, which is common in Pride movements across the world. One provocative topic of 2025 was “The Universe of BL/GL Literature and the Power of Diversity.” The invitations were extended to editors, authors, scholars, policymakers, and publishers, including Sapaan Publishing, which specializes in lesbian works. At the Pride Forum, participants came together on stage to discuss the phenomenon of homoerotic literary and media genres proliferating in Thailand, Asia, and beyond. Since the beginning of the 2020s, the Thai BL genre has gained momentum, thanks in part to the state’s policy on the creative economy. Starting in 2022, the genre expanded to include Thai Yuri, or Girls Love (GL) series that depict female homoeroticism on screen. Moreover, Thai studios have become Asia’s leading producer of GL television (Li & Pang, 2025) . In 2024, the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand (PUBAT) reported an increase in both the number and sales of Yuri/GL novels at the National Book Fairs, which they attributed to the rise in the number of GL TV

FAQs

What does the study examine about the Lily Festival in Bangkok?

It examines how the Lily Festival sustains GL cultural and community dimensions and how it reflects tensions between digital platforms, commercial publishers, and gender-driven sapphic agendas.

How has Yuri/Girls Love (GL) developed in Thailand according to the article?

The article describes significant growth from the late 2010s onward, supported by momentum in BL and by state policy on the creative economy, followed by the expansion into Thai Yuri/GL series.

What methods does the research use to analyze the festival?

It applies feminist book history and critical event studies and draws on in-depth interviews with festival organizers, publishers, writers, illustrators, production representatives, and stars.

Aug 28, 2026

Uploaded by Mali