Peter Popham visited Burma several times as an undercover reporter to research his new biography of Aung San Suu Kyi: The Lady and the Peacock. As a foreign correspondent, mostly with The Independent, he has lived for long periods in Japan, India and Italy and has written about more than 20 other countries including Mongolia, Yemen, Albania and the USA. He was taken hostage by Maoist guerrilas in Nepal, entered Kabul on the heels of the fleeing Taliban, and identified the abductor of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl two weeks ahead of the Pakistani police. In Italy he argued long and hard in his newspaper for the innocence of Amanda Knox. He was deported from Burma in 2010 but returned with a different identity to meet Aung San Suu Kyi again.