About the Author

Writer, scholar, preservationist and entrepreneur, Alex Kerr has spent most of his life in Japan and Thailand. He majored in Japanese Studies at Yale University (1969 - 74), and earned a BA and MA in Chinese Studies as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University (1974-77). He first visited Bangkok in 1973 and has been based there permanently since 1997. Alex's book. Lost Japan (1993), reflections on how he saw Japan change after the 1960s, won the prestigious Shincho Lierary Prize, the first time it was a warded to a foreigner. His next book, Dogs and Demons (2001) described the industrial devastation of Japan's countryside. Alex's long association with Thailand has taken many incarnations, from restorer of old teak houses to promoter of cultural events, culminating in 2004 with the founding of Origin, a program that teaches traditional Thai arts in Bangkok and Chiangmai.