Diamonds in my Pocket: Tales from a Childhood in Asia

by Amanda Kovattana

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.

184 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Tracy Dumais · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a long time expat (or 'existential migrant' as we prefer to be called nowadays - thanks Greg Madison) tales of liminality and threshold fascinate me. In the 21st century so few of us inhabit the grounded world we, as children, imagined we would inherit and so we often find ourselves in search of companionship in our confusion. This story - an autobiography of a tricultural and biracial woman growing up in three continents (she is also gay in case you feel her story might not be sufficiently interesting already) - is such a companion, and gives the reader so much to ponder. It is also a rich source of detail about life Bangkok in the 1960s - a city in its own transition between the peaceful Venice of the East (who would dare to call it that now?) and the sprawling modern metropolis it has become.

Amanda Kovattana gamely refused to fit in any of the boxes offered to her, and reading her story lends a little bit of courage to anyone having trouble with their own boxes, be they cultural, geographical, linguistic, racial or sexual.

[Banbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, the author uncannily intertwined both a personal accounting of her own perceptions as well as an outsider's view of events. Her writing thus captures her circumstances of being part of her Thai family culture and part of her San Francisco Bay Area culture (?--such as it was in the '60s and '70s), yet with part of her outside of each. She describes being both native and foreigner in just about every aspect of her life. She describes it a kind of objective detachment that is yet warm with sympathy and appreciation.