Artist launches a book

Artist launches a book

JAKARTA (JP): Landscape designer Made Wijaya, whose real name is Michael White, has launched his book Stranger in Paradise - Diary of an Expatriate in Bali.

The launching ceremony was held at the Regent Hotel on Friday.

The book is a compilation of the author's eponymous column of the same title written for the Sunday Bali Post between 1972 and 1981. In those days people living in Bali might know Made as a columnist.

Now he is better known as "The Gardener of Bali", as most hotels in Bali (and in many other big cities in Indonesia) have been influenced by the hotel gardens he has designed.

Yet his name does not appear in a recent publication entitled Balinese Gardens, apparently due to censorship by the main sponsor of the book, the Hyatt.

Rumors has it that someone at the top of the regional management of the Hyatt has a personal vendetta against Made. This person did not allow the publishers of the book to include Made's name, not even his former name.

Made declined to comment directly on his problem with the Hyatt, and only said non-chalantly, "If anything, I made their gardens famous!". (Amir Sidharta)