H.E. Chea Chanto ជា ចាន់តូ (9 Oct. 1951, Kompong Thom Province - 25 Oct. 2024, Phnom Penh) was an economic and social planner who played a key role in reviving Cambodia’s financial and banking system in the post-Khmer Rouge era as the Minister of Planning from 1986 to 1994, and served as the… Read more

Jean Daniel Gardère (b. 1942) is a senior French civil servant and economic advisor to the Ministry of Finance who, later in life, became a writer, museologist, and exhibition designer specializing in the economic and monetary history of Cambodia. He visited Cambodia for the first time in 1968, at… Read more

Walter Koditek is (b. 30 Nov. 1964, Emmerich, Germany) is a German urban planner, author and photographer who has been working and living in Asia since 2006, settling in Siem Reap in 2024 after spending the years 2014-2023 in Hong Kong.After graduating at Technical University Berlin, Walter Koditek… Read more

Nguyễn Thế Anh (1 June 1936, Thakhek, Laos - 19 March 2023, Toulouse, France) was a Vietnamese historian specializing in modern history of Vietnam - in particular the Nguyễn dynasty - and its relations with neighboring countries. Certified professor of history in 1963, Nguyễn Thế Anh served as… Read more

Adrian Vickers is an Australian author, historian and professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Sydney specializing in Indonesian language and cultural history, in particular Gambuh dance traditions, Panji stories, Balinese art, as well as historiography, colonialism studies and… Read more

Elizabeth Becker (b. 28 Oct. 1947) is an American author, a former journalist who has covered international affairs since 1973 when she became a stringer for the Far Eastern Economic Review and later The Washington Post and The New York Times in Phnom Penh as one of the few women reporters in the… Read more

Henri Turot (24 Feb. 1865, Bar-sur-Aube, France - 3 June 1920, Paris 16) was a French journalist and photographer who traveled across Southeast Asia - including Phnom Penh and Angkor - and South China in 1899, and co-founded in 1904 a small news agency, L'Agence Radio, taken over by Havas Agency in… Read more

Arthur Llewellyn Basham (24 May 1914, Loughton, England, – 27 January 1986, Calcutta [mod. Kolkata], India) was a British historian, Indologist, author, and a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London in the 1950s and the 1960s where he taught several future noted… Read more

John Kremers Whitmore (1940 - Nov. 2020) was an American scholar credited as the pioneer of Vietnamese studies in the US starting from the 1960s, as he explored Vietnamese pre-modern and modern history, mentored new generations of American researchers in Southeast Asian history and expanded his… Read more

Hiroaki Sato [Sato Hiroaki] 佐藤 紘彰  (b. 1942, Taiwan) is a Japanese poet and translator who has been living in New York since 1968, the president of the Haiku Society of America from 1979 to 1981.Educated at Doshisha University, Kyoto, after his family fled back to Japan at the end of WWII, and in… Read more

Robert Joseph 'Bob' Casey (14 March 1890, Beresford, South Dakota, USA – 5 Dec. 1962, Evanston, Illinois, USA) was a decorated combat veteran and Chicago-based newspaper correspondent and columnist who covered both World War I and II in Europe, Africa and the Pacific, a born story-teller of Irish… Read more

Sumet Jumsai na Ayudhya สุเมธ ชุมสาย ณ อยุธยา 书梅 春塞 (b. 30 March1939, Bangkok, Thailand) is a Thai architect, visual artist and author, National Artist of Thailand in 1998, the designer of some 200 contemporary buildings in Thailand including the headquarters of the Bank of Asia (The Robot… Read more

Long Seam ឡុង សៀម [or Long Siem; Лонг Сеам in Russian]  (15 July 1935, Thla Village, Kampong Thom Province - 15 July 2007, Phnom Penh) was a Cambodian historian, philologist and specialist of Khmer epigraphy who was instrumental in the revival of Cambodian cultural research from the 1980s and… Read more

Jean-Michel Gallet (b. 18 November 1947, La Bassée, France) is a consultant in agricultural development who has been working for French NGOs in Africa, Eastern Europe and across Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia) for nearly four decades, visiting Cambodia for the first time in… Read more

Nithi Aeurisvongse นิธิ เอียวศรีวงศ์ [or Nidhi ‘Īaosīwong, Nidhi Eeosewong] (23 May 1940, Chiang Mai – 7 Aug. 2023, Chiang Mai, Thailand) was a Thai historian, writer, and political commentator whose research focused on the way Thai power structure evolved "from "absolute monarchy to a monarchy… Read more

Pierre [Peter] Fabricius (23 Apr. 1912, Berlin, Germany -20 Dec. 1988, Moulins, France) was a Sanskritist, Indianist and Khmerologist who spent 24 years in Cambodia (1950-1974) as an educator and independent researcher.After three years at Heidelberg University studying Sanskrit under Prof.… Read more

Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern, known as H. Kern or Henrik Kern (6 April 1833, Poerworedjo [Purworejo], Central Java – 4 July 1917, Utrecht, The Netherlands) was a Dutch linguist, comparative philologist and Sanskritist.Born in the Central Java province of then Dutch East Indies, he was six when his… Read more

Yukio Mishima - Mishima Yukio 三島 由紀夫 [pen name of Hiraoka Kimitake 平岡 公威, 14 Jan. 1925, Tokyo, Japan – 25 Nov. 1970, Tokyo) was a worldwide acclaimed Japanese novelist, playwright and essayist whose death by ceremonial seppuku reflected his complex character and the cultural crisis in post-war… Read more

Henri Dufour (19 Sept. 1870, Nancy, France - 1 Jan. 1939, Nancy?) was a French architect, visual artist and explorer who was one of the first Western experts to study the Bayon monument at the turn of the 20th century alongside Charles Carpeaux, Henri Parmentier and Jean Commaille. At Nancy… Read more

Paul Alexandre Marie Collard (15 Oct. 1861, ? - 8 Oct. 1926, Aix-en-Provence) was a French colonial administrator who spent 37 years in Cambodia (from 1883 to 1924), and served as resident-mayor of Phnom Penh.A relic from the 'Admirals' period in French Indochina, he was one of the longest-serving… Read more