Simon Sebag Montefiore

He is the author of the acclaimed Moscow Trilogy of novels Sashenka, Red Sky at Noon and One Night in Winter (published in French as La Cercle Poushkine and in Italian as L’Amore ai Tempi Della Neve). One Night in Winter won the Political Novel of the Year Prize (UK) and was longlisted for the Orwell Prize (UK). Catherine The Great And Potemkin was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper, and Marsh Biography Prizes. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards. Young Stalin won the Costa Biography Award (UK), the LA Times Book Prize for Biography (US), Le Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique (France) and the Kreisky Prize for Political Literature (Austria). Jerusalem: The Biography was number one non-fiction Sunday Times bestseller and a global bestseller and won The Book of the Year Prize from the Jewish Book Council (US). It also won the Wen Jin Prize in China awarded by the National Library of China, and to date the book has sold almost 600,000 copies in Chinese. The Romanovs, 1613–1918 has been a bestseller all over the world including being a New York Times top ten bestseller, and won Lupicaia del Terriccio Literature Prize (Italy).  His latest book is Voices of History: Speeches that Changed the World.

He is the author of the series of childrens’ books (with Santa Montefiore) Royal Rabbits of London.

All of his books are now being optioned and developed for either films or TV drama series.

He has written and presented five BBC TV series on Jerusalem (‘The Making of a Holy City’), Rome (‘A History of the Eternal City’), Istanbul (‘Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities’), Spain (‘Blood and Gold’) and Vienna (‘Empire, Dynasty and Dream’).

He read history at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, where he received his Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD). A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Visiting Professor in Modern History at the University of Buckingham, he lives in London.

Professor Sebag Montefiore regularly lectures around the world on history, Russia and the Middle East, and on subjects such as leadership and revolution.