Dr OOI KEE BENG is the Executive Director of Penang Institute. He was the Deputy Director (2011-2017) of Singapore’s ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, where he had been a fellow since 2004. Born and raised in Penang, he received his PhD in Sinology from Stockholm University.

He is the founder-editor of the popular magazine Penang Monthly and the policy briefs ISSUES (Penang Institute) and ISEAS Perspective (ISEAS). He is also editor of Trends in Southeast Asia (ISEAS). He is a long-time columnist for The Edge Malaysia.

His book, The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time (2006), won the “Award of Excellence for Best Writing Published in Book Form on Any Aspect of Asia (Non-Fiction)”. Other noted works by him include The Eurasian Core and Its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World; Young and Malay: Growing Up in Multicultural Malaysia; Yusof Ishak: A Man of Many Firsts; In Lieu of Ideology: An Intellectual Biography of Goh Keng Swee; Lim Kit Siang: Defying the Odds; and The Right to Differ: A Biographical Sketch of Lim Kit Siang. His translations of Chinese war manuals such as Sunzi’s Art of War, Wuzi’s Art of War and Weiliaozi’s Art of War are the first from classical Chinese into Swedish. 

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