About the Author

Brian Stoddart is a writer, broadcaster, commentator and blogger of New Zealand descent, based in Australia and working around the globe. He works as an international higher education consultant and has worked on programs in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Syria and Jordan as well as in the UK and USA. This work follows a successful career as university researcher, teacher and senior executive which culminated in a term as Vice-Chancellor and President of La Trobe University in Australia where he is now an Emeritus Professor. That academic career took him all over the world including long periods in India, Malaysia, Canada, the Caribbean, China and Southeast Asia. He has written extensively on sports history, politics and culture as well as on India and south Asia in which field he completed his PhD. Most recently he has begun writing on his contemporary experiences, beginning with his life in an old house in the Old City of Damascus immediately before the upheavals of 2011-12. He is also a crime novelist, with A Madras Miasma the first in a series of books set in 1920s Madras in India, and featuring Superintendent Chris Le Fanu. He also writes extensively for mainstream and new media as well as expert commentary for press, radio and television. Brian is also a cruise ship lecturer, specialising in international affairs and history. In his spare time, he enjoys photography, reading (especially crime fiction), travel to new places, and listening to music, especially gypsy ja