Michael Vatikiotis

has lived and worked in Asia for the past forty years. Formerly a BBC Correspondent and editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, he has written three books on the politics of Southeast Asia and two novels set in Indonesia. With family origins in the Middle East, he has lived in Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Hong Kong.  He graduated from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, earned his doctorate on Thailand from Oxford University, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Maryland. For the past twenty years, he has worked as a private diplomat addressing conflict in Asia. He speaks the Thai and Indonesian languages fluently.