Robert Harris (novelist)
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Robert Dennis Harris (born March 7, 1957 in Nottingham) was an English TV reporter and journalist and is currently a novelist.
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[edit] Background
Robert Harris came from a quiet upbringing. His early years were spent in a small, rented house on a Nottingham council estate. His ambition to become a writer was made apparent at a young age, following visits to the local print works where his father was employed. He attended Belvoir High School, Bottesford followed by King Edward VII School, Melton Mowbray, where there is now a hall named after him. There he wrote plays and edited the school magazine. As an undergraduate student, he read English Literature at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he was both President of the Cambridge Union and editor of the student newspaper Varsity.
Robert Harris lives in a Berkshire vicarage, with his wife Gill Hornby, (also a writer) and their four children (Holly, Charlie, Matilda and Sam). His books are now translated into thirty languages.
[edit] Career
After graduating he worked for the BBC on news and current affairs programs such as Panorama and Newsnight. In 1987, at the age of thirty, he became political editor of The Observer newspaper.
In the course of his journalistic career he also wrote columns for The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph.
[edit] Non-fiction period (1982-1990)
His real ambition however was to be an author, rather than a journalist. In 1982 his first book appeared, a factual work on chemical and biological warfare called A Higher Form Of Killing, which he wrote in collaboration with Jeremy Paxman. Other non-fiction works followed, Gotcha, the Media, the Government and the Falklands Crisis (1983), The Making of Neil Kinnock (1984), Selling Hitler (1986) (about the Hitler Diaries) and Good and Faithful Servant (1990) (about Bernard Ingham, press secretary to Margaret Thatcher).
[edit] First historical fiction works and public acclaim (1992-1999)
It was after the publication of his million selling first novel, Fatherland, a novel about a world where Germany won World War II, in 1992 that Harris became a full time author. A film deal soon followed, as it did for his second novel Enigma (1995) about the breaking of the German Enigma code, which was turned into a film starring Kate Winslet with screenplay by Tom Stoppard. Archangel (1998) was also an international best seller and was adapted as a BBC mini-series in 2005, starring future James Bond actor Daniel Craig.
[edit] Historical fiction about Ancient Rome (2003-present)
While his aforementioned best sellers dealt with historical fiction of the World War II era and possible outcomes, in 2003, Harris turned his attention towards Ancient Rome with his acclaimed Pompeii which was an international best seller. He followed this with the start of a trilogy, called Imperium (2006), about the life of Rome’s great orator, Cicero. In February 2007 it was announced that Roman Polanski was set to direct the film of Pompeii.
[edit] Contemporary political fiction (2007)
In 2007, Harris interrupted his Roman trilogy with a political thriller set in the present day. The Ghost is the story of a ghost-writer working on the autobiography of a recent British prime minister and has been described as roman à clef based on Tony Blair.[1]
[edit] TV work
Robert Harris has appeared on the BBC panel game Have I Got News for You in episode 3 of the first series in 1990 and in episode 4 of the second series a year later. In the first instance he appeared having been called up as a last minute replacement for no-show Roy Hattersley.
He made a third appearance on the programme on 12 October 2007, 17 years to the day after his first appearance. Since the gap between his second and third appearance was nearly 16 years, that makes it the longest gap between 2 successive appearances on Have I Got News for You by any individual.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Fiction
- Fatherland (1992)
- Enigma (1995)
- Archangel (1999)
- Pompeii (2003)
- The Ghost (2007)
[edit] Cicero trilogy
- Imperium (2006)
- Conspiracy (forthcoming release date in October, 2008)
[edit] Non-fiction
- A Higher Form of Killing: Secret Story of Gas and Germ Warfare (1982 with Jeremy Paxman)
- Gotcha! The Government, the Media and the Falklands Crisis (1983)
- The Making of Neil Kinnock (1984)
- Selling Hitler: Story of the Hitler Diaries (1986)
- Good and Faithful Servant: Unauthorized Biography of Bernard Ingham (1990)
[edit] Trivia
Harris is married to Nick Hornby’s sister. [2]
[edit] References
- ^ Review in The Guardian
- ^ Hornby, Nick (2006). The Polysyllabic Spree. Viking. ISBN-13: 978-0-670-91666-5.
[edit] External links
- [1] transcript of interview with Ramona Koval on The Book Show ABC Radio National 13 November 2007
- Robert Harris at the Internet Movie Database
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