Frederick Forsyth Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Frederick Forsyth Biography

Frederick Forsyth is an English author and occasional political commentator. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan,The Cobra and The Kill List.

He has packed a tremendous amount of action into his life and frequently drawn on his experiences to lend verisimilitude to his fiction. At the age of 19, he became the youngest pilot in the Royal Air Force, but then decided to follow a journalistic career. After three years as a provincial reporter, he joined Reuters and spent the next four years in Europe.

In 1965 he joined the BBC and was sent to Biafra to cover the war that was raging in Nigeria. What he saw of this brutal and cynical conflict made it difficult for him to toe the editorial line of the BBC's coverage so he resigned, turned freelance, vanished into the thick of the conflict and later emerged to publish the highly controversial The Biafra Story. In 1969 he decided to use his experience as a Reuters reporter in France as the basis for a thriller. Within 35 day he'd completed The Day of the Jackal, which established him as one of the world's leading thriller writers.

He was Awarded the CBE in 1997. He also won the Cartier Diamond Dagger award by the Crime Writers Association in recognition of his body of work.

Frederick Forsyth is married and lives in Buckinghamshire.

Frederick Forsyth's website

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