He is available for talks and book signings. Contact him at johnburgess@gmx.com.

He began his career in journalism in Thailand in 1971 as a sub-editor at The Bangkok World, an English-language newspaper. Later he wrote as a freelancer from Thailand, Laos and Vietnam for a collection of foreign news organizations. He joined the staff of The Washington Post in 1980 and had a 28-year career at the newspaper as a writer and editor, covering a diverse collection of issues--Asia, Europe, the computer industry, mass transit and international economics. He was the newspaper's Japan and Korea correspondent from 1984 to 1987, living in Tokyo. He took an early retirement from the newspaper in 2008 and has since focused on this book and other independent writing. 

He lives in Washington D.C. with his wife Karen, who as a UN refugee official shared the experience of the 1979 Cambodia exodus with him. They have two grown daughters, Katharine and Sarah.

Burgess was born in 1951 in Greensboro, North Carolina. As a boy he also lived in Bangkok, New Delhi, Jakarta and Washington, D.C., due to his father’s assignments as a diplomat. With his work abroad, he has continued a family connection with Asia which began in 1882 when two great-great-grandparents arrived in Japan as Baptist missionaries.