Nicholas Rankin (born 1950) is an English writer and broadcaster.

Biography

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Rankin was born in Yorkshire, England, but grew up in Kenya. His father was born in Glasgow.[1] He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford. He has lived and worked in Bolivia and Catalonia, Spain.

He worked for the BBC World Service for 20 years. He was Chief Producer, Arts, at the BBC World Service, when his eight-part series on ecology and evolution, A Green History of the Planet, won two UN awards.[2][3]

He currently works as a freelance writer and broadcaster and lives in London with his wife, the novelist Maggie Gee. He has one daughter, Rosa.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009.[4]

Bibliography

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Books

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  • Dead Man's Chest: Travels after Robert Louis Stevenson. London, Faber and Faber, 1987. ISBN 978-0-571-13808-1
  • Telegram from Guernica: The Extraordinary Life of George Steer, War Correspondent. London: Faber and Faber, 2003. ISBN 978-0-571-20563-9
  • Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914-1945. Faber and Faber. 2008. ISBN 978-0-571-22195-0.
  • Ian Fleming's Commandos: The Story of 30 Assault Unit in WWII. London: Faber and Faber, 2011. ISBN 978-0-571-25062-2
  • Defending the Rock: How Gibraltar Defeated Hitler. London: Faber and Faber. 2017. ISBN 978-0-571-30770-8.
  • Trapped in History: Kenya, Mau Mau and Me. London: Faber and Faber. 2023. ISBN 978-0-571-30774-6.

Critical studies and reviews of Rankin's work

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Churchill's Wizards
Ian Fleming's Commandos
Telegram from Guernica
Dead Man's Chest: Travels after Robert Louis Stevenson
  • a critical assessment is included in Lesley Graham's essay "Questions of Identity on the Stevenson Trail in Scotland", in Brown, Ian and Desmarest, Clarisse Godard (eds.), (2023), Writing Scottishness: Literature and the Shaping of Scottish National Identities, Association for Scottish Literature, Glasgow, pp. 138 - 156, ISBN 978-1-908980-39-7

References

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  1. ^ Rankin, Nicholas (1988), Dead Man's Chest: Travels After Robert Louis Stevenson, Faber and Faber, London, p. 10, ISBN 9781842122754
  2. ^ Author page at Faber & Faber website
  3. ^ Rankin, Nicholas (4 November 2009). "Nicholas Rankin" (PDF). Mershon Center for International Security Studies. hdl:1811/44587. Retrieved 3 December 2013.
  4. ^ "Royal Society of Literature All Fellows". Royal Society of Literature. Archived from the original on 5 March 2010. Retrieved 10 August 2010.
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