of the Rome Daily American, which was the largest English newspaper in the post-war era in Italy, in 1953. Keon worked for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and had a hand in setting up the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños, Laguna. He was stationed in Washington D.C. and at the United Nations headquarters in New York City in 1963. During his time in Rome, and after the couple split, his wife, Elizabeth, was press attache for the Philippine Embassy starting in 1961, and their son Michael Edward was born in Rome on 22 September 1954. Michael and Elizabeth separated permanently in April 1962. In 1963, at the age of eight, Michael Edward made worldwide headlines in the international custody battle between his parents. An Australian court awarded custody of Michael Edward to his father because the child had been registered as an Australian citizen and had been raised in "Western ways". After the divorce Michael Edward was partially raised by his paternal aunt and her husband. Keon's novel, The Durian Tree, about the struggle between the British colonialist and Communist insurgents after World War II in Malaysia, was the basis for the 1964 film The 7th Dawn. Keon's former wife, Elizabeth Marcos, was vice-governor and later governor of the Philippine province of Ilocos Norte (1971–83). She married, secondly, in Ilocos Norte in September 1979, to businessman Ludwig Petre Rocka. Rocka was born in Tulcea, Romania, and became an Australian citizen. He was a former engineer who became a prominent Melbourne and Manila businessman (International Development & Planning Corporation) in the construction business and also sold heavy construction equipment. Death Elizabeth Marcos died at age 65 of heart failure, in a Manila hospital, 14 December 1986. Michael Keon died in Rosebud, Victoria at the age of 87. Works Fiction (fact/historical based): 1953: The Tiger in Summer – (New York: Harper & Brothers) 1960: The Durian Tree – (New York: Simon & Schuster; OCLC Number: 1448119) Non-fiction: 1977: Korean Phoenix: A Nation From the Ashes – (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall International) 1993: Joy Hester: An Unsettling World – (North Caulfield, Victoria: Malakoff Fine Art Press) 1996: Glad Morning Again – (Watsons Bay, NSW: Imprint; autobiography) References External links 1918 births 2006 deaths Marcos family 20th-century Australian novelists Australian male novelists 20th-century Australian non-fiction writers Australian people of English descent 20th-century Australian male writers