Tari Lang for My Neighbour, The Dictator

We are excited to be welcoming Tari Lang to the bookshop this May to celebrate her memoir, My Neighbour, the Dictator - a rare first-hand memoir of Indonesia’s pivotal year, 1965. Tari combines the intimacy of literary memoir with the insight of Indonesian political history. It is not an event to be missed.

Indonesia, 1965. As General Suharto seizes power and the streets of Jakarta run with fear, 14-year-old Tari Budiardjo's life is torn apart. Her Javanese father and British-born mother - intellectuals and civil servants-turned-radicals in Sukarno's government - are imprisoned without trial, leaving her to navigate adolescence in a city of soldiers, informers and whispered betrayals. Between crushes, curfews and secret errands for the resistance, Tari finds herself caught between childhood and revolution. My Neighbour, The Dictator is both an intimate memoir and a rare witness to Indonesia's most turbulent years - a story of family, love and survival in the shadow of tyranny.

Tari Lang was born in Prague in 1951 to a British mother and Javanese father and grew up in Jakarta. At 14, she found herself at the epicentre of Indonesia's 1965 coup, when her parents - both radical intellectuals in Sukarno's government - were imprisoned without trial. As a teenager she worked in Indonesia's underground movement before escaping to London in 1969. She went on to build an international career as a businesswoman and reputation management consultant, advising governments and global institutions, and serving as CEO of two major firms. Today she lives between Edinburgh and France, where she chairs the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and sits on the boards of leading cultural organisations.