Amanda at Times with Diamonds

Over ten years ago, Amanda sat on a plane for Bangkok, on the way to her Times grandmother's cremation. She had not been back since childhood and she finds the city of her youth is disappearing...

Author Amanda Kovattana will be talking about her new memoir at Times Bookstore at Pavilion KL, this Friday (31st) 4-6p.m.

According to the blurb on Horizon's website Diamonds in My Pocket is a her story of growing up:

Only child of a beautiful blond English expatriate and the brilliant scion of an upper class Thai family, Amanda Kovattana came of age in the long-vanished world of aristocratic Bangkok. In this exquisitely-rendered memoir, Kovattana produces a chiaroscuro canvas full of sights and sounds and smells, of daily lives textured by honor and tradition, of a family ruptured by deceit and jealousy. Caught in a web of tensions between her mother and father, between East and West, the Old World and the New, the author finally uncovers the long-buried secrets of her own soul.

The author describes herself on her blog as :

... a free range writer who offers fresh, organically grown perspectives while cultivating a fruitful living as a professional organizer. She was born in England, raised in Bangkok and lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

For the upcoming talk, Amanda shares her thoughts about identity and the tension between the individual and society (two of the underlying themes of Diamonds in My Pocket). She will talk about the experience of growing up in a third culture—an experience many Malaysians are familiar with. And there will be a Q&A session after the talk.

Quite apart from being interested in Amanda the author, I think I desperately need to hire her personal services!

(Thanks Han for the invitation to the event via Facebook.)