Noel Barber (9 September 1909 – 10 July 1988)
was a British novelist and journalist. Many of his novels, set in exotic countries, are about his experiences as leading foreign correspondent for the ''
Daily Mail''. He was the son of John Barber and his Danish wife, Musse, and had two brothers: Kenneth, a banker, and
Anthony Barber
Anthony Perrinott Lysberg Barber, Baron Barber, (4 July 1920 – 16 December 2005) was a British Conservative politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1970 to 1974.
After serving in both the Territorial Army and the Royal A ...
, Baron Barber.
Most notably he reported from
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...
, where he was stabbed five times. In October 1956, Barber survived a gunshot wound to the head by a Soviet sentry in
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
during the
Hungarian revolution.
A car crash ended his career as journalist. He then began writing novels: he became a best-selling novelist in his seventies with his first novel, ''Tanamera''.
Novels
* ''Tanamera: A Novel of Singapore'' (1981)
* ''A Farewell to France'' (1983)
* ''A Woman of Cairo'' (1984) Published in the United States as ''Sakkara'' (1985)
* ''The Other Side of Paradise'' (1986)
* ''The Weeping and the Laughter'' (1988)
* ''The Daughters of the Prince'' (1990)
Non-fiction
* ''How Strong is Japan''? (1942)
*''How Strong is America?'' (1942)
*''Trans-Siberian'' (1942)
*''Prisoner of War'' (1944)
*''Cities'' (1951) (with
Rupert Croft-Cooke
Rupert Croft-Cooke (20 June 1903 – 10 June 1979) was an English writer. A prolific creator of fiction and non-fiction, including screenplays and biographies under his own name and detective stories under the pseudonym of Leo Bruce.
Life
The ...
)
* ''Fires of Spring'' (1952)
* ''Strangers in the Sun'' (1955)
* ''A Handful of Ashes: A Personal Testament of the Battle of Budapest'' (1957)
* ''The White Desert'' (1958)
* ''Distant Places'' (1959)
* ''The Flight of the Dalai Lama'' (1960)
* ''Life with Titina'' (1961)
* ''Adventures At Both Poles'' (1963)
* ''Conversations with Painters'' (1964)
* ''The Black Hole of Calcutta'' (1965)
* ''Let's Visit the USA'' (1967)
* ''Sinister Twilight: The Fall And Rise Again of Singapore'' (1968)
* ''From the Land of Lost Content'' (1969)
* ''
The War of the Running Dogs: How Malaya Defeated the Communist Guerrillas, 1948-60'' (1971)
* ''The Sultans'' (1973)
* ''Lords of the Golden Horn: From Suleiman the Magnificent to Kamal Ataturk'' (1973)
* ''Seven Days of Freedom: Hungarian Uprising, 1956'' (1974)
* ''The Week France Fell: June 10–16, 1940'' (1976)
* ''The Natives Were Friendly So We Stayed the Night'' (1977)
* ''The Singapore Story'' (1978)
* ''Fall of Shanghai: Communist Takeover in 1949'' (1979)
Adaptations
''Tanamera'' was filmed as a television serial in 1989 as ''
Tanamera – Lion of Singapore'', while ''The Other Side of Paradise'' was filmed for TV in 1992 as ''
The Other Side of Paradise
''The Other Side of Paradise'' is a 1992 miniseries about a doctor who goes to the Cook Islands. Scott Murray, ''Australia on the Small Screen 1970–1995: The Complete Guide to Tele-Features and Mini-Series'' (Melbourne: Oxford University Pres ...
''.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barber, Noel
1909 births
1988 deaths
British reporters and correspondents
British expatriates in Hungary
British expatriates in Morocco
British shooting survivors
20th-century English novelists
British people of Danish descent