Acclaimed British author Frederick Forsyth makes a rare local appearance on Tues. August 20th at the Ann and Jerry Moss Theater at New Roads School, 3131 W. Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica. (Immediately west of Centinela. Free Parking. Tickets, $20).
Forsyth cut his teeth as a journalist in the early 1960s covering French affairs and the attempted assassination of Charles De Gaulle. He later moved to Africa to cover the Nigerian Civil War for the BBC in 1967, but chafed at what he considered interference from the Beeb in his coverage. So he quit the corporation and returned to Biafra as a freelance reporter, writing his first book The Biafra Story, in 1969.
Two years later he wrote his first, and perhaps best novel, The Day of the Jackal, which he finished in an astonishing 35 days and which catapulted him to international fame. In the book, the Organisation Armée Secrète (a real-life terrorist group) hires an assassin to kill then-French President Charles de Gaulle. It was made into a film of the same name.
Forsyth, whose other bestsettlers include The Odessa File and The Dogs of War, has an uncanny knack of making his books jump from newspaper headlines, or from smaller stories that he feels deserve greater notice. Even the title of his new novel reverberates with controversy from news stories a year or so ago: the President’s Kill List, which includes the names of targets deemed dangerous enough to threaten safety and security that they must be eliminated. In the fictional Kill List, Forsyth treats us to a story about an extremist and charismatic Islamic preacher who encourages his flock, via sermons online, to take aim at the West. Our hero, aptly named Kit Carson, becomes enraged and engaged when the fight gets personal. With as much drive as his predecessor, The Jackal, Kit Carson launches himself into an international manhunt for a very dangerous guy.
Frederick Forsyth will appear with leading NPR journalist Mike Shuster. In the trenches with NPR since 1980, Shuster has covered wars in Iraq and Iran, the Intifadas in Israel, September 11, Afghanistan, Africa, and South Asia, including India and Pakistan. He is considered to be one of the most experienced Middle Eastern correspondents in the world, and has won numerous prestigious awards for his distinguished reporting. Mike recently retired from NPR, so now is a great opportunity to reconnect with his encyclopedic knowledge of every hotspot he has ever covered.
This fascinating evening is brought to you by writers bloc. For more details visit writersblocpresents.com
