Possible Clues:

• Hearing about Irish-born author that's oriental?
• Head of empire, a more forbidding Bostonian perhaps
• Initially expecting a more serious person from Boston, say
• A Nepalese, say, is earnest about monarch
• Oriental Queen engaging a novelist from Ireland
• Eg Tojo's directions to capture plant by river
• Oriental always outside to the rear of the ship
• Pennsylvanian, e.g
• Oriental writer featured in the Listener
• Drug taken by a more austere Asian?