Australian Harry Nicolaides wrote a novel that he said he hoped would strip away "the veneer of truth" from Thailand, where he was teaching at the time, as the Monitor reported.
A brief passage in his novel was about the private life of an unnamed crown prince, so in 2005, he sent advance copies to the palace and two government ministries, seeking their approval.
After receiving no reply, he began to sell the book in Thailand. Only 50 copies were self-published and few were sold. But a couple of years later, it was pulled from stores on the orders of the Ministry of Justice.
Mr. Nicolaides was arrested in 2008 on charges of lèse-majesté and ultimately sentenced to three years in prison. After serving six months, he was pardoned in February 2009.
