Latest news with #TheDogsofWar
Chicago Tribune
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Biblioracle: Remembering the writers Frederick Forsyth and Edmund White
When a writer of note and particular importance dies, I often like to write a column of tribute exploring the writer's work and the influence it had on my life and my thinking. These are not proper obituaries, but more of a personal remembrance of a connection with someone whom I've never met but has still had some indelible effect on my life. Sadly, I could do these pieces just about every week. Though maybe this isn't sad. To be able to say that so many writers have been meaningful to you is not a horrible thing. Sometimes I consider doing a column about a particular writer but decide that my connection isn't quite sufficient to carry a full installment, and I move on. But there have been two recent deaths of writers who did very different things in their work and that I encountered at two very different times in my life who now feel strangely paired. Frederick Forsyth, one of the great political/spy thriller writers of all time, died June 9 at the age of 86. In the early '70s, Forsyth had one of the great consecutive runs of commercial fiction, releasing 'The Day of the Jackal,' 'The Odessa File,' and 'The Dogs of War' all between 1971 and 1974. These tales of Cold War intrigue often folded in real-life figures — the plot of 'The Day of the Jackal' revolves around an assassination plot of then-French president Charles de Gaulle — and read like someone tapped into a trove of top-secret files. I read these novels in the back of the car as a tween/young teen, escaping from the tedium of a family road trip into a world of daring and intrigue. What did I know about secret geopolitical machinations? Nothing, but the books were thrilling, and few have topped him when it comes to the thriller genre. Forsyth's later work was marred by an overt preoccupation with right-wing politics, but I cannot forget the first adult writer I ever read. I came to the work of Edmund White, who died on June 3 at the age of 85, via a writer who was influenced by him, Garth Greenwell. Greenwell's quasi-trilogy 'What Belongs to You,' 'Cleanness' and 'Small Rain' delivers powerful stories of gay life in contemporary America written with a frankness that breaks through what I can only describe as my own ignorance rooted in my straight, white male experience of the world. Greenwell has described White as a kind of progenitor who made his subsequent work possible, and I became curious about his progenitor. I went back to start White's own semi-autobiographical quasi-trilogy of 'A Boy's Own Story,' 'The Beautiful Room Is Empty' and 'The Farewell Symphony' and it was like being introduced to The Beatles after you'd first heard Nirvana. 'A Boy's Own Story' is an amazing experience as White unfolds the life of a 15-year-old narrator (at the opening) just as he comes to understand and misunderstand his homosexuality. This is the 1950s in the Midwest and the boy feels that his own deepest desires are taboo and therefore attempts to deny them. But these desires cannot be denied. Told retrospectively when the narrator has emerged into adulthood, we feel both external and internal turbulence of the narrator's life. At the same time, White also shows that his view of the world, colored by his sexuality, is a kind of superpower that reveals self-knowledge hidden from most people. I doubt I'll ever run out of writers who have something fresh to reveal to me about the world. I'm grateful to have encountered these two. John Warner is the author of books including 'More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.' You can find him at Book recommendations from the Biblioracle John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you've read. 1. 'Hang on St. Christopher' by Adrian McKinty 2. 'The Dragon Republic' by R.F. Kuang 3. 'Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong' by Katie Gee Salisbury 4. 'The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth' by Zoë Schlanger 5. 'A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage' by Asia MackayI have just the book for Rosary. The first in a series of witty, unconventional mysteries, 'Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone' by Benjamin Stevenson. 1. 'Tom Clancy: Defense Protocol' by Brian Andrews 2. 'Battle Mountain' by C.J. Box 3. 'Perfect Storm' by Paige Shelton 4. 'The Medici Return' by Steve Berry 5. 'Den of Iniquity' by J.A. JanceI'm going to lean into the thriller, though a mystery would work too: 'The Gray Man' by Mark Greaney. 1. 'Never Flinch' by Stephen King 2. 'Framed' by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey 3. 'Lost City of the Monkey God' by Douglas Preston 4. 'Rabbit Moon' by Jennifer Haigh 5. 'Middletide' by Sarah CrouchFor Sue, I'm recommending a book by one of the three authors I covered last week, 'Dare Me' by Megan Abbott. Get a reading from the Biblioracle Send a list of the last five books you've read and your hometown to biblioracle@
Spectator
14-06-2025
- Spectator
Lunches, kidnappings and coups: my Frederick Forsyth connection
Back in 2007, I went to war-ravaged Guinea-Bissau in west Africa to report on its rise as the continent's first narco-state. Latino cartels were using it as a staging post for shipping cocaine to Europe, bribing its rulers to turn a blind eye. So much product was being landed that local fishermen would catch stray bales of coke in their nets – a modern twist on Compton Mackenzie's novel Whisky Galore. Guinea-Bissau's new drug lords would go on to inspire a novel of their own. Back home on the Telegraph foreign desk in London a few months later, I got a call from no less a figure than Frederick Forsyth. His next novel, he told me, was going to be about the cocaine trade, set in coup-ridden west Africa: Narcos meets The Dogs of War. Could I fax him my article (he was a famous technophobe) and pass on a few contacts? Oh, and any recommendations for a hotel? Despite already pushing 70, he was still the roving correspondent that he started out as, keen to see things for himself.
Muscat Daily
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Muscat Daily
Frederick Forsyth, 'Day of the Jackal' author, dies aged 86
London, UK – Frederick Forsyth, the British author of The Day of the Jackal and other bestselling thrillers, has died after a brief illness, his literary agent said on Monday. He was 86. Jonathan Lloyd, his agent, said Forsyth died at home early on Monday surrounded by his family. 'We mourn the passing of one of the world's greatest thriller writers,' Lloyd said. Forsyth published more than 25 books, also including The Odessa File and The Dogs of War , and sold 75mn copies around the world, he said. 'Luck played its big part' Forsyth's most famous work was about a fictional assassination attempt on former French President Charles de Gaulle by right-wing extremists 35 days after falling on hard times. The Jackal went on to be made into a hit film starring Edward Fox as the assassin. A Netflix remake, with Eddie Redmayne in the lead role, was released last year. Forsyth attributed much of this success to 'luck', recalling how a bullet narrowly missed him while he was covering the bloody Nigerian civil war between 1967 and 1970. 'I have had the most spectacular luck all through my life,' he told British newspaper The Times last November in an interview. 'Right place, right time, right person, right contact, right promotion – and even just turning my head away when that bullet went past,' he said. Final novel to be released in August Forsyth was a former journalist and pilot and saw many of his novels were also turned into films. 'After serving as one of the youngest ever RAF pilots, he turned to journalism, using his gift for languages in German, French and Russian to become a foreign correspondent in Biafra (in Nigeria),' Lloyd explained in announcing Forsyth's death. 'Appalled at what he saw and using his experience during a stint as a secret service agent, he wrote his first and perhaps most famous novel, The Day Of The Jackal ,' he added. A sequel to The Odessa File , entitled Revenge Of Odessa , which he co-wrote with Tony Kent, is due to be published in August, his publisher Bill Scott-Kerr said. 'His journalistic background brought a rigour and a metronomic efficiency to his working practice and his nose for and understanding of a great story kept his novels both thrillingly contemporary and fresh,' Scott-Kerr added. Forsyth had two sons by his first wife. His second wife, Sandy, died last year. DW
Otago Daily Times
10-06-2025
- Otago Daily Times
'Day of the Jackal' author Frederick Forsyth dies
British novelist Frederick Forsyth, who authored best-selling thrillers such as "The Day of the Jackal" and "The Dogs of War," has died aged 86, his publisher says. A former correspondent for Reuters and the BBC, and an informant for Britain's MI6 foreign spy agency, Forsyth made his name by using his experiences as a reporter in Paris to pen the story of a failed assassination plot on Charles de Gaulle. "The Day of the Jackal", in which an English assassin, played in the film by Edward Fox, is hired by French paramilitaries angry at de Gaulle's withdrawal from Algeria, was published in 1971 after Forsyth found himself penniless in London. Written in just 35 days, the book was rejected by a host of publishers who worried that the story was flawed and would not sell as de Gaulle had not been assassinated. De Gaulle died in 1970 from a ruptured aorta while playing Solitaire. But Forsyth's hurricane-paced thriller complete with journalistic-style detail and brutal sub-plots of lust, betrayal and murder was an instant hit. The once poor journalist became a wealthy writer of fiction. "I never intended to be a writer at all," Forsyth later wrote in his memoir, "The Outsider - My Life in Intrigue". "After all, writers are odd creatures, and if they try to make a living at it, even more so." So influential was the novel that Venezuelan militant revolutionary Illich Ramirez Sanchez, was dubbed "Carlos the Jackal". Forsyth presented himself as a cross between Ernest Hemingway and John le Carre - both action man and Cold War spy - but delighted in turning around the insult that he was a literary lightweight. "I am lightweight but popular. My books sell," he once said. His books, fantastical plots that almost rejoiced in the cynicism of an underworld of spies, criminals, hackers and killers, sold more than 75 million copies. Behind the swashbuckling bravado, though, there were hints of sadness. He later spoke of turning inwards to his imagination as a lonely only child during and after World War Two. The isolated Forsyth discovered a talent for languages: he claimed to be a native French speaker by the age of 12 and a native German speaker by the age of 16, largely due to exchanges. He went to Tonbridge School, one of England's ancient fee-paying schools, and learned Russian from two emigre Georgian princesses in Paris. He added Spanish by the age of 18. He also learned to fly and did his national service in the Royal Air Force where he flew fighters such as a single seater version of the de Havilland Vampire. THE REPORTER Impressing Reuters' editors with his languages and knowledge that Bujumbura was a city in Burundi, he was offered a job at the news agency in 1961 and sent to Paris and then East Berlin where the Stasi secret police kept close tabs on him. He left Reuters for the BBC but soon became disillusioned by its bureaucracy and what he saw as the corporation's failure to cover Nigeria properly due to the government's incompetent post-colonial views on Africa. It was in 1968 that Forsyth was approached by the Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, and asked by an officer named "Ronnie" to inform on what was really going on in Biafra. By his own account, he would keep contacts with the MI6, which he called "the Firm", for many years. His novels showed extensive knowledge of the world of spies and he even edited out bits of "The Fourth Protocol" (1984), he said, so that militants would not know how to detonate an atomic bomb. His writing was sometimes cruel, such as when the Jackal kills his lover after she discovers he is an assassin. "He looked down at her, and for the first time she noticed that the grey flecks in his eyes had spread and clouded over the whole expression, which had become dead and lifeless like a machine staring down at her." THE WRITER After finally finding a publisher for "The Day of the Jackal," he was offered a three-novel contract by Harold Harris of Hutchinson. Next came "The Odessa File" in 1972, the story of a young German freelance journalist who tries to track down SS man Eduard Roschmann, or "The Butcher of Riga". After that, "The Dogs of War" in 1974 is about a group of white mercenaries hired by a British mining magnate to kill the mad dictator of an African republic - based on Equatorial Guinea's Francisco Macias Nguema - and replace him with a puppet. The New York Times said at the time that the novel was "pitched at the level of a suburban Saturday night movie audience" and that it was "informed with a kind of post‐imperial condescension toward the black man". Divorced from Carole Cunningham in 1988, he married Sandy Molloy in 1994. But he lost a fortune in an investment scam and had to write more novels to support himself. He had two sons - Stuart and Shane - with his first wife. His later novels variously cast hackers, Russians, al Qaeda militants and cocaine smugglers against the forces of good - broadly Britain and the West. But the novels never quite reached the level of the Jackal. A supporter of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, Forsyth scolded Britain's elites for what he cast as their treachery and naivety. In columns for The Daily Express , he gave a host of withering assessments of the modern world from an intellectual right-wing perspective. The world, he said, worried too much about "the oriental pandemic" (known to most as Covid-19), Donald Trump was "deranged", Vladimir Putin "a tyrant" and "liberal luvvies of the West" were wrong on most things. He was, to the end, a reporter who wrote novels. "In a world that increasingly obsesses over the gods of power, money and fame, a journalist and a writer must remain detached," he wrote. "It is our job to hold power to account."
Business Times
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Times
The Day of The Jackal author Frederick Forsyth dies, aged 86
[LONDON] Prolific British thriller writer Frederick Forsyth, who instantly became a global bestselling author when his book The Day of the Jackal was published in 1971, died on Monday (Jun 9) aged 86, his literary agents Curtis Brown said. Forsyth famously penned his most famous work about a fictional assassination attempt on French president Charles de Gaulle by right-wing extremists in just 35 days after falling on hard times. It went on to be made into a hit film starring Edward Fox as the assassin. A TV series with Eddie Redmayne in the lead role was released last year. 'We mourn the passing of one of the world's greatest thriller writers,' his agent Jonathan Lloyd said. Forsyth died at home surrounded by his family following a brief illness, according to Curtis Brown. Divorced from Carole Cunningham in 1988, he married Sandy Molloy in 1994. He had two sons, Stuart and Shane, with his first wife. His second wife died last year. The former journalist and pilot wrote over 25 books including The Odessa File (1972) and The Dogs of War (1974) and sold over 75 million copies worldwide. Many of his novels were also turned into films. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 2 pm Lifestyle Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself. Sign Up Sign Up 'Only a few weeks ago I sat with him as we watched a new and moving documentary of his life ... and was reminded of an extraordinary life, well lived,' said Lloyd. A sequel to The Odessa File, entitled Revenge Of Odessa, on which he worked with thriller writer Tony Kent, is due to be published in August, his publisher Bill Scott-Kerr said. 'His journalistic background brought a rigour and a metronomic efficiency to his working practice and his nose for and understanding of a great story kept his novels both thrillingly contemporary and fresh,' Scott-Kerr added. Forsyth attributed much of his success to 'luck', recalling how a bullet narrowly missed him while he was covering the bloody Biafra civil war between 1967 and 1970. 'I have had the most spectacular luck all through my life,' he told The Times last November in an interview. 'Right place, right time, right person, right contact, right promotion – and even just turning my head away when that bullet went past,' he said. Asked why he had decided to give up writing – although he later went back to it – he told AFP in 2016 he'd 'run out of things to say'. 'I can't just sit at home and do a nice little romance from within my study, I have to go out and check out places like Modagishu, Guinea Bissau, both hellholes in different ways,' he said. 'I never intended to be a writer at all,' Forsyth wrote in his memoir, The Outsider - My Life in Intrigue. 'After all, writers are odd creatures, and if they try to make a living at it, even more so.' So influential was the novel that Venezuelan militant revolutionary Illich Ramirez Sanchez, was dubbed 'Carlos the Jackal'. Forsyth presented himself as a cross between Ernest Hemingway and John le Carre – both action man and Cold War spy – but delighted in turning around the insult that he was a literary lightweight. 'I am lightweight but popular. My books sell,' he once said. He was, to the end, a reporter who wrote novels. 'In a world that increasingly obsesses over the gods of power, money and fame, a journalist and a writer must remain detached,' he wrote. 'It is our job to hold power to account.' AFP, REUTERS
