Colin Smith (born 1944 in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

) is a British foreign affairs journalist and author. Smith has reported on news events in Bangladesh,

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

, and the Middle East. He is an author of historical fiction and non-fiction, mainly focused on conflicts of the 20th century.

Life and career

For 26 years he worked for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'', of which he was later appointed assistant editor, mainly reporting on wars and trouble spots, starting in 1971 with the Bengali uprising in what was then

East Pakistan East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Scheme, One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India ...

(now

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

). He visited Cambodia and Vietnam during the closing stages of the American presence (1974–75) and remained in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) after the North Vietnamese Army entered the city. Smith later covered the Middle East, based first in Nicosia, then Cairo and Jerusalem and spending a considerable amount of time (1975–84) in Iran and Lebanon. In 1991 he reported on the First Gulf War, entering Kuwait City with the US Marines, the siege of Sarajevo and the Rwandan genocide. He has twice been named International Reporter of the Year in the British press awards and once runner-up.

Publications

''The Last Crusade'', a novel set against the backcloth of

General Allenby Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby, (23 April 1861 – 14 May 1936) was a senior British Army Officer (armed forces), officer and Imperial Governor. He fought in the Second Boer War and also in the First World ...

's 1917 campaign against the Ottoman Turks in Palestine . Sharpe Books publish it as an Ebook under the title ''"Spies of Jerusalem".'' ''Singapore Burning'' is an account of the

fall of Singapore The Fall of Singapore, also known as the Battle of Singapore,; ta, சிங்கப்பூரின் வீழ்ச்சி; ja, シンガポールの戦い took place in the South–East Asian theatre of the Pacific War. The Empire of ...

to Japan's General

Tomoyuki Yamashita was a Japanese officer and convicted war criminal, who was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Yamashita led Japanese forces during the invasion of Malaya and Battle of Singapore, with his accomplishment of conquering ...

in February 1942 which concentrates on the rearguard actions Australians, UK British and British Indian Army troops fought down the

Malayan peninsula The Malay Peninsula (Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area ...

in the two months that preceded the surrender. ''England's Last War Against France'', published in London by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2009. It is a history of Allied campaigns against

Vichy France Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

between 1940 and 1942 containing considerable personal testimony from participants on both sides.

References

Books

*''Carlos – Portrait of a Terrorist''. 1976, revised Penguin edition 2012 . *''Cut Out'' (novel). 1979. Endeavour Ebook retitled Collateral Damage, 2014 *''The Last Crusade'' (novel). 1990. Endeavour Ebook retitled Spies of Jerusalem, 2013 *''Fire in the Night: Wingate of Burma, Ethiopia and Zion'' (with John Bierman). 1999. *''Alamein – War Without Hate'' (with John Bierman). 2002. *''Singapore Burning – Heroism and Surrender in World War Two''. Viking Penguin, London,(), 2005. *England's Last War Against France – Fighting Vichy 1940–42, Weidenfeld, 2009 *Let Us Do Evil (novel) Sharpe Books, 2018 *Warsaw Boy - Andrew Borowiec, Edited, Penguin, 2015

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Colin Living people The Observer people 1944 births British war correspondents