Narisa Chakrabongse

Narisa Chakrabongse (Thai: หม่อมราชวงศ์นริศรา จักรพงษ์; Naritsa Chakkraphong, born 2 August 1956) is a Thai publisher, author, and environmental activist.

She is the only daughter of Prince Chula Chakrabongse and his English wife Elizabeth Hunter. Her paternal grandfather was Prince Chakrabongse Bhuvanath, the Prince of Bishnulok (Phitsanulok), who in turn was the son of King Rama V (Chulalongkorn) of Siam.

Narisa Chakrabongse was born in England and spent the first years of her life in Tredethy, Cornwall. She has studied history of art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. She married Allen Levy and has a son, the musician Hugo Chula Alexander or Chulachak Chakrabongse. Later they divorced and she remarried Korsvasti Svasti Thomson, son of Mom Rajawongse Sai Svasti Svastivatana and Gary Thomson, and had a son, Dominic Phuwasawat Chakrabongse.

She is the founder and CEO of River Books which publishes a wide range of books on Southeast Asian art and culture, and is the editor of the Oxford River Books English-Thai Dictionary. Chakrabongse Villas, the family home, is a small boutique hotel in Bangkok. She is the founding president of Green World Foundation (GWF), an environmental campaign organisation promoting education and awareness about issues relating to the environment in schools. A well-known media personality in Thailand, she withdrew from the torch-running ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics, protesting against China's actions in Tibet, the first person to do so on political grounds, though others followed. She is on the board of The Anglo-Thai Society, promoting good relations and cultural interchange between Thailand and the UK.

Together with her aunt Eileen Hunter she has authored Katya & the Prince of Siam, a biography of her Ukrainian grandmother Ekaterina Ivanovna Desnitskaya (Mom Katerin) and her grandfather Prince Chakrabongse Bhuvanath.

(Selection)

• (Co-authored with Eileen Hunter) Katya & the Prince of Siam. River Books. 1995.
• (Co-authored with Naengnoi Suksri) Palaces of Bangkok: Royal residences of the Chakri dynasty. Asia Books. 1996.
• (Co-authored with Henry Ginsburg, Santanee Phasuk, and Dawn F. Rooney) Siam in trade and war: Royal maps of the nineteenth century. River Books. 2006.
• (Co-authored with Naengnoi Suksri, and Thanit Limpanandhu) The Grand Palace and Old Bangkok. River Books. 2010.
• (Co-authored with Worawat Thonglor) Riverside Recipes: Thai Cooking at Chakrabongse Villas. River Books. 2014.
• Translated and edited Letters from St. Petersburg - A Siamese Prince at the Court of the Last Tsar. River Books. 2017.