Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth CBE (born August 25, 1938 in Ashford , Kent , England ) is a British writer . According to his own statements, he worked for a good 20 years from 1968 as an agent for the British intelligence service MI6 , including in Nigeria and the GDR .
Life and work
Military time
Forsyth was the youngest jet pilot in the Royal Air Force from 1956 to 1958 (and the youngest at the age of 19) .
journalist
He then worked as a reporter for the Reuters news agency in England as well as France , Spain , Belgium , the GDR , the Federal Republic of Germany and Czechoslovakia ; a job that brought him into contact with the world of international politics. Reporting from war zones in Africa as a TV reporter for the BBC aroused his interest in historical and political backgrounds and motivated him to write The Biafra Story .
During his work as a journalist, Frederick Forsyth, according to his own statements, was a spy for the British foreign intelligence service MI6 for more than 20 years. During this time he carried out jobs in Africa and the GDR, among other things.
writer
Based on his journalistic experience, he began his literary career around 1970 . Due to his travels in Europe , the Middle East and Africa as well as his language skills ( French , German , Spanish ) Frederick Forsyth succeeds in creating a lively and realistic representation.
Frederick Forsyth's novels are mostly political thrillers . The first two books ( The Jackal , The Odessa Files ) were equally great successes.
In his works, the author repeatedly combines actual and fictional events. In the case of the Jackal with the actions of the OAS in its struggle against independence from Algeria and the Odessa file , networks of Nazi hiding and their connections to the Arab states in the run-up to the Six Day War with Israel are discussed. The book The Avenger ties in with the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
In the novella The Pilot , Frederick Forsyth brings his experience as a pilot in the British Air Force. The story is about a pilot who on Christmas Eve 1957, 12 years after the end of the Second World War, on his flight home from Germany to England, got lost in the fog due to a technical defect and from a mysterious pilot in an outdated fighter plane safely to a disused air force base is directed. The Shepherd (that's the original title) has developed into a story traditionally read on the radio on Christmas Eve in Canada . The story is considered "in the opinion of the critics ... exciting and of particular literary quality."
Political position
In an open letter dated July 7, 2000 to the then Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Erwin Teufel , Forsyth wrote that, as a conservative , he reviled and despised the three political extremes he had come to know in his life: Nazism , fascism and communism : “All three are perverted descendants of socialism. All three are brutal and cruel creeds. They also have a lot in common otherwise; they are committed to political correctness and the punishment of anyone who deviates from the prescribed doctrine. This is how political correctness works today. Thus, all four of these political orthodoxy are diametrically opposed to conservatism . ”“ I also reject political correctness because it tried to imagine itself as a creed of tolerance, but is perverted to the exact opposite. ”He fears that political correctness is thinking the majority in Germany dominate.
In a guest article in the news magazine Focus on August 23, 2010 under the title "It is time for Germany to get up again", Frederick Forsyth wrote "The European Union is not a democracy " as a reply to the Lisbon Treaty . In it he called on the Germans to resist and justified this with quotations from Jean Monnet and Abraham Lincoln that he mentioned .
In August 2015 Forsyth publicly announced that he had been recruited by the British intelligence service MI6 during the Biafra War in 1968 to report human rights violations from the war zone. Later he also operated in the GDR. These statements are apparently in connection with his autobiography Outsider , announced for September 2015 , which was published in German parallel to the British edition.
Awards
- 1972: Edgar Allan Poe Award - Best Novel category for The Day of the Jackal (German: Der Schakal . Piper, Munich 1972)
- 1972: Swedish Crime Award - Category Best Detective Novel for Jackals translated into Swedish (Original: The Day of the Jackal ; German: Der Schakal . Piper, Munich 1972)
- 1983: Edgar Allan Poe Award - Best Short Story category for There Are No Snakes in Ireland (German: There are no snakes in Ireland . Piper, Munich 1982)
- 1983: Grand prix de littérature policière - International category for sans bavures (Original: No Comebacks ; German: There are no snakes in Ireland . Piper, Munich 1982)
- 2012: Cartier Diamond Dagger lifetime achievement award , the highest award from the British Crime Writers' Association (CWA) for an author's life's work to date
Works
- The jackal . Piper, Munich 1972; ibid. 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-30214-2 ( The Day of the Jackal , 1971, No. 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list from April 10 to September 17, 1972 ).
- The Odessa files . Piper, Munich 1973; ibid. 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-30216-6 ( The Odessa File , 1972, No. 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list from April 9 to September 1, 1973 ).
- The dogs of war . Piper, Munich 1974; ibid. 2001, ISBN 3-492-23127-6 ( The Dogs of War , 1974).
- The pilot . Piper, Munich 1975; ibid. 2012, ISBN 978-3-492-30122-0 ( The Shepherd , 1975).
- Biafra story. Report on an African tragedy . Piper, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-492-02244-8 ( The Biafra Story , 1969).
- The devil's alternative . Piper, Munich 1979; ibid. 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-30215-9 ( The Devil's Alternative , 1979). ( Number 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list from November 26th to December 9th and from December 24th to 30th, 1979 )
- There are no snakes in Ireland . Ten stories. Piper, Munich 1982; ibid. 2001, ISBN 3-492-23130-6 ( No Comebacks , 1982).
- The fourth protocol . Piper, Munich 1984; ibid. 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-30213-5 ( The Fourth Protocol , 1984).
- The negotiator . Piper, Munich 1989; ibid. 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-30133-6 ( The Negotiator , 1989).
- McCready's double play . Piper, Munich 1991; ibid. 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-30156-5 ( The Deceiver , 1991).
- The fist of God . Bertelsmann, Munich 1994; Goldmann, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-442-45771-8 ( The Fist of God , 1994).
- The black manifesto . Bertelsmann, Munich 1996; Goldmann, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-442-45752-1 ( Icon , 1996).
- The Phantom of Manhattan . Bertelsmann, Munich 2000; Goldmann, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-442-45003-9 ( The Phantom of Manhattan , 1999).
- The veteran . Stories. Bertelsmann, Munich 2002; Goldmann, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-442-45616-9 ( The Veteran , 2001).
- The avenger . Bertelsmann, Munich 2003; Goldmann, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-442-45950-8 ( Avenger , 2003).
- The Afghan . Bertelsmann, Munich 2006; Goldmann, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-442-46701-3 ( The Afghan , 2006).
- Cobra . Bertelsmann, Munich 2010; Goldmann, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-442-47776-0 ( The Cobra , 2010).
- The death list . Bertelsmann, Munich 2013; btb, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-442-74846-4 ( The Kill List , 2013).
- Outsider. The autobiography . Bertelsmann, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-570-10266-4 ( The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue , 2015).
- The fox . Bertelsmann, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-570-10385-2 ( The Fox , 2018).
Film adaptations
The jackal was filmed twice, once in 1973 under the (English) title The Day of the Jackal , and then in 1997 as The Jackal . In addition, The Odessa File was created in 1974 , The Dogs of War in 1981 , The Fourth Protocol in 1987 , The Black Manifesto in 2005 and Avenger (TV) in 2006 . McCready's Doppelspiel was also filmed for television in 1989/90 as a six-part episode film.
literature
- Craig Cabell: Frederick Forsyth. A matter of protocol . Robson Books, London 2001, ISBN 1-86105-414-9 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Frederick Forsyth in the catalog of the German National Library
- Frederick Forsyth in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Eberhart Wagenknecht: Review of the novel "Der Afghane". In: Eurasian magazine . January 31, 2007, accessed November 25, 2010 .
- Charles E. Ritterband: Portrait: Frederick Forsyth, thriller writer. In: NZZ Folio . 1992, accessed November 25, 2010 .
- Hannes Hintermeier: Only stupid politicians rely on negotiations. In: FAZ . November 6, 2010, p. Z1 , accessed November 25, 2010 : “Forsyth wants to free the world from the misery of the cocaine trade. His new novel Cobra plays out how the fight could be waged "
- British star author spied for MI6 in the GDR, in: Die Welt from August 30, 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of August 31, 2015; P. 23
- ↑ Frederick Forsyth in the Munzinger Archive , accessed on December 30, 2012 ( beginning of article freely accessible).
- ↑ "Loyal to the line dwarfs". Deutschlandlied: Open letter from bestselling author Frederick Forsyth to CDU Prime Minister Erwin Teufel. In: Junge Freiheit, July 7, 2000
- ↑ "It is time for Germany to get up again". The European Union is not a democracy, believes the British bestselling author and calls on Germans to resist. In: FOCUS magazine | DEBATE No. 34 (2010)
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Forsyth, Frederick |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British writer |
DATE OF BIRTH | August 25, 1938 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Ashford , Kent , England |