Book Reviews

More Than The Eye Can See tells the story of Gopinath Pillai, a Singaporean businessman, and diplomat who served as Singapore's Non-Resident Ambassador to Iran (1989–2008) and High Commissioner to Pakistan (1994–2001). Alongside working with prominent members of Singapore's pioneering generation to strengthen the country's manufacturing profile and international trade during the Cold War, he broke into liberalising India as a trailblazing entrepreneur and contributed to the nation's public life as the first Chairman of NTUC Fairprice and Founder Chairman of the Institute of South Asian Studies.

A self-described "Jack of All Trades", Gopi's memoirs frame episodes of personal struggle against milestones in the progress of the nation. Born in Singapore to Malayalee parents in 1937, Gopi spent his early childhood in India throughout the Japanese Occupation, where he witnessed the Communist Movement in Kerala first-hand. When he returned to Singapore in 1946, Gopi grew up in a multi-racial society taking its fledgling steps as a democracy. His career took him all over — to Thailand and Malaysia as an economist and journalist and the Middle East and America as a manager — reflecting Singapore's early industrialisation and the pursuit of its values and interests abroad and at home.