One day he was swimming at the beach, and when he came out of the water, he heard all those German voices coming from all around him, which made him envision a Europe where Hitler won, where Lufthansa flights would be everywhere, where Germany would enjoy full power in Europe. The plot came to the author’s mind one day as he was in Sicily during the summer of 1987, traveling with his to-be-wife on a holiday.
The book was turned into a movie in 1994 by HBO.
The book became so successful that Harris was soon able to become a full time author and retire from journalism for good. In 1992, the first Robert Harris book, Fatherland, was published by Random House, and it became an instant success.įatherland is set in an alternate world, a parallel world where Germany, in fact, won WWII.
Soon after, he wrote four additional non-fiction books ( Gotcha, 1983, The Making of Neil Kinnock, 1984, Selling Hitler, 1986, and Good and Faithful Servant, 1990) until he moved on to writing fiction stories. He really changed to fiction after his first child was born, as he needed the additional income to supplement whatever he was earning from the Sunday Times. Further, in his reporter career, he also worked for the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph writing columns for both newspapers.ĭuring his time as a reporter, he also started working on his first book, which was a nonfiction study of chemical and biological warfare titled A Higher Form of Killing, a book he co-authored with his coworker and BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman. During his time at the university, he was the editor of Varsity, the oldest campus newspaper, and he became president of the Cambridge Union during this time.Īfter graduating from Cambridge, Robert Harris began working for the BBC, where he worked on current news and affairs, and he remained there until 1987, when he became political editor of The Observer at the age of 30. Next, he attended Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he studies English literature. Many years later, this school would name one of their halls after this author. He attended Belvoir High School in Bottesford, following which he went to King Edward VII School, Melton Mowbray, where he wrote plays and worked as the editor of the school magazine. At the age of 6 he wrote a political essay titled Why me and my dad don’t like Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Already during his childhood he dreamed of writing plays and books, following his visits to the printing plant where his father was employed. Robert Dennis Harris was born in 1957, in Nottingham, UK, where he also grew up, spending his early childhood on a Nottingham council estate.
Good and Faithful Servant, 1990 (non-fiction).The Making of Neil Kinnock, 1984 (non-fiction).A Higher Form of Killing, 1982, with Jeremy Paxman (non-fiction).