Biography
Ben Macintyre is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends and The Spy and the Traitor. He is an Associate Editor, columnist and writer at large for The Times. He was the newspaper’s bureau chief in New York, Paris and Washington, before returning to the UK in 2001. He has written a weekly column since 1996. He regularly presents BBC series based on his acclaimed books.
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He is the author of 13 books including Agent Zigzag, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Galaxy British Book Award for Biography of the Year 2008, and the no. 1 bestsellers A Spy Among Friends, Operation Mincemeat, Double Cross and SAS: Rogue Heroes
In 2019, The Spy and the Traitor, which tells the story of double KGB agent Oleg Gordievsky and was a No.1 Sunday Times Bestseller and shortlisted for the Ballie Gifford prize and National Book Awards. Ben’s new book Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy tells the story of Ursula Kuczynski – codename Sonya – the greatest female spy of the 20th century.
He was educated at Abingdon School and read History at St John’s College, University of Cambridge.