About the Author

Before anything else, let me just say that I’m a Gemini. I think that alone says a lot. I’m a strange mixture of many things. Made my parents proud when I was called to the bar at Middle Temple, UK. I practised as a litigator. It was a brief stint. Then somehow, life had other plans. Many of them.

I have since moved through courtrooms, corporate corridors, hospital wards, grand ballrooms, and recently signed myself up for F&B. Still not entirely sure how that happened. Actually, I do. Thanks to my husband. It all started when someone dared him, and yes, with zero background, we ventured into the unknown territory. Scary yet fulfilling. The amount of food tasting I have done is enough to make me look like I never said no to a single plate. I didn't.

Each world had its own language. Each chapter has its own cost. What connected them was never the title or the room. It was always the people. The ones who revealed everything. The ones who concealed even more. Somewhere along the way, I learnt to listen to both.That listening eventually became writing.Being a wife and a mother to my boys gave my life wholeness. Coco, my cat, on the other hand, has the absolute pleasure of being a typical Alpha British Short Hair, utterly unapologetic as if he's doing me a favour.And then I wrote a book. Not because I planned to. But because I needed to.

The Woman Behind The Icon is a friendship portrait of Malaysia’s Biduanita Negara, Dato’ Sri Siti Nurhaliza Tarudin, told through a decade of close friendship. I thought I was writing about her. What I didn’t see coming was how three years of observing someone who has truly made peace with who she is would make me reveal parts of myself I hadn't been ready to see. The woman staring back had a name. I call her the Lady in Yellow. She visits every woman who dares to begin something that matters. She sits across from you uninvited. She asks the questions you have been most afraid to answer.This book is what happened when I finally looked her in the eye. And if there is one thing I have carried from every courtroom, every hospital ward, every learning space, every restaurant, every chapter this life handed me, it is this. Make peace with yourself and start from there.

Best,

Shairin Sharif