Cabin crew-turned-personal butler, Layla is drawn to the hidden worlds of people’s working lives. Her debut memoir, Life in Flight Mode (Salmon Books, 2018), follows a young woman coming of age through the turbulence of life in the skies, tracing her transformation from girl next door into the polished face of Thailand’s national airline.

 

Her second memoir, Mabuhay Manila (Salmon Books, 2022), returns to the summer she spent in Manila during her first job as a makeup artist. With little money in her pocket but a determination to invest in herself, twenty-year-old Layla enters a country many people have heard of, but few truly know: the Philippines. The book reached Kinokuniya’s bestseller list in its first week.

 

Born and raised in Bangkok and having spent much of her working life in London, Layla holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from De Montfort University. Described by her publisher as “a writer who experiments with different jobs,” she now lives between London, Bangkok, and Monaco.